Contents

Part 1

Gender Issues                                                                                  Pages 2 – 5

Part 2

More On The Gaze                                                              Pages 6 – 7, 11 – 13

A Female Gaze                                                                    Pages 7 – 11, 17

Part 3

Illusion                                                                                   Pages 13 – 16

Part  4

Looking for Ones Self                                                         Pages 17 – 20, 23

Part 5

Values in Art (no subject)                                                   Pages 19 – 22

Art and Money                                                                      Pages 22 – 23

Part 6

Two Sides to Every Story                                                    Page 24

Part 7

Heads in the Clouds                                                           Pages 24 – 25

Public Blog                                                                           Pages 25 – 26

If the Finger was Pointed at the Moon                              Pages 26 – 31     

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Wayne Stefano, for putting, all initial analysis of ones self a side and carrying out these dialogues with Anonymous. Since October 2007 these dialogues have been away for Anonymous to take on an outsiders view to be able to challenge, research and apply this in the forms of dialogues. By sharing the information to a wider audience this has helped in form both Wayne Stefano, and that of Anonymous.

With great thanks, and a hope that they will carry on………………

                                                                                                          Anonymous 2007 

Preface

The pages, which follow, show a glimpse of an artists work through the eyes of Anonymous persons. This book is a collection of material, which has been manifesting since October 2007.

Volume One consists of not just Dialogues between the artist and Critique Wayne Stefano and Anonymous, but also images will instigated these initial conversations. One Luggage Label – Two sides to every story, is a metaphor acting as the link between the transference of such dialogues and the move from images to ideas through, artists, philosophers, psychoanalysis’s within culture and how these reflect upon the everyday artist and work.

This Volume is easy to follow through the direct exchange of dialogues, adding more questions through luggage labels adding this tactile contrasts to such a direct object – being a book leaves it as an open piece of work, as opposed to being closed and linear as books often are.

With a reference to a story generated through the name given on Page 16 if I could chose a name I would be called Hilary, a response from a collective of Anonymous persons has added a response to this story. With more than one Anonymous person adding response later in the volumes you can feel the link between what’s come before and what’s yet to come, by reading Volume Two Enlighten(me)nt, and Volume Three Noticing Change, which I recommend you do.

As I found both Anonymous and Stefano have a mix of views, which change and challenge such contemporary views in art today. Making this read as not just a critique of art and issues surrounding art and artists today, but how the past has a strong presence in the future of art its self.

                                                                                                            Anonymous 2007

An Audio and Visual Guide

To see the progression forward please feel free to Listen to Anonymous exclusively on the disk provided in the pocket below, or visit: www.nonymous.org.uk, or www.reproductions.org.uk.
 

Thank you for your response!

I have spent the week researching your suggestions - and found it very interesting in the way you are trying to explore your self!

So a week on - seeing these images still in this state. Sat here, almost becoming part of the landscape.

Opens up the suggestion to - Are you stuck in your thinking? have you come up against a brick wall. Or are these images no longer accessible! Has the life drained out of them, or are you slowly taking them on board, as a fictional character, living out the reality of each one! Or is it just my imagination! Of what you might be!

Anonymous

Hi anonymous.

You are correct in your assumption that these images are part of the landscape, isn't installation just an immersive painting that has become confused without a media specify? You are however mistaken in suspecting my thinking has become stuck, as I said, letting go can achieve results without sticky reason. Saying that, there must come a point where on fuses the experiential with the cognitive. That is the importance of dialogue; it helps to combine the openness of the imagination to be guided by goal setting. In response to the 'taking on board' the fictional characters and 'living them out', I consider such a fantasy to be pretty close to anyone's existence. We should be aware of 'the other', it is an ethical responsibility, at risk of getting into a political debate about such things, I shall leave that there. | Have considered your closing remark of 'what you might be' I would extend this from an act of introspection to exospection (not sure if that's a legitimate word but it suits), perhaps the question is more appropriately framed as 'what we might be!' Possibilities are far more exciting than definitions...

Wayne

Anonymous,

Thank you for taking an interest in these images and for the time taken to write your comment. I was quite surprised you chose to attempt a pop-psychoanalysis of my gender. Perhaps it is easier for you to make such judgments upon others than to do so inwardly. To go further it is in my opinion Lacanian metta-narratives are there to be challenged, It is well documented when one looks in the mirror, and we see from an early stage this image is different. We reposition our perspective and there is no turning back to the real, onward we crash into language, all that is left is desire. I refuse to jump on this bandwagon!

There is as much credence in 'letting go' of rationality and reason, in allowing the paralinguistic imagination to be creative (and this is my Lacanian challenge or more precisely 'experiment'). This is what I'm doing, without the pressure of knowing. You are correct in that respect (if only by default) in saying I'm '...delving into the unknown'. All I know at this stage is I have a compulsion to repeat the process. Look back a very long time and you will notice this compulsion is inherent to the desire to copy and copy the arresting yet charging challenge of beauty.

 I suppose one's position on this may be influenced by the ideas you posses or rather the way in which ideas posses you! To illustrate my point, you may consider yourself a postmodernist relativist, supporting the idea of heterogeneity and multiculturalism in this land of endless and weightless sign swapping we disguise as deconstruction and intertextuality. You may have a modernist approach to judging the quality of a work or image via its aesthetic, reductive thinking with essences at the bottom of its pit. Either way, they are elusive, both point to something immeasurable, how do you quantify infinity? 

My practice investigates such issues; the images are at once derived from the physical realm and yet only exist in the gaze, at hypothetical worlds within the imagination.

Feel free to respond, I see all dialogue as research in this sense you are now part of this work...

_______

To be able to assume I have instigated a pop-psychoanalysis on you would mean I would have to know you in some way, and I only know what I see, and that is the images on your desk.

Anyway I find it interesting on how you touch on Lacanian notions, yet do not won't to commit yourself into these ways of thinking. But don't you think that these images reflect your desire, what I mean is don't you think that the desire to become something you are not or could only wish to be, could not be suggested through what you are attempting to do?

Quantify infinity, interesting to me it was just an eight turned on its side yet, it really does have some kind of supporting edge to which you work stands up against.

Looking at it in the way in which it does not matter how much you refine something it will never be! In your images your pictures for me are where the layered images no longer become separate, they become joint- merging together and yet when I am looking down on them they meet of the horizon, yet never disappearing! I think for you perhaps you see it more like " The human need to quantify infinity lies squarely in our fear of the unknown" Funny that come back to the "Unknown" yet again.

I have a question - In what way where you categorizing your images, in terms of Gaze? - I mean was it in relation to the male gaze/lacans interpretation of the gaze.

Anonymous

Hi anonymous, if all you know is what you see in the images then I argue you are not qualified to make such a personal judgment about my gender. On this point I stand resolutely firm, you still attempted to make a judgment upon me with very little information and that is dangerous. From an anti essentialist position each reading is one of many possible readings, rather than an excavation of something "within" the text (one may consider the image to be textual). "The truth" of any single reading is not privileged in that case but open to critical analysis.

 I would be more interested in your subjective response concerning your relationship to these images.

Hi anonymous, please ignore the last email as I clicked send before I finished writing.

If all you know is what you see in the images then I argue you are not qualified to make such a personal judgment about my gender. On this point I stand resolutely firm, you still attempted to make a judgment upon me with very little information and that is dangerous. Your argument here is a circular one, you state the case that you would have to know me and therefore you are not making a psychoanalysis and yet you attempted to do so simply by looking at the images. From an anti essentialist position each reading is one of many possible readings, rather than an excavation of something "within" the text (one may consider the image to be textual). "The truth" of any single reading is not privileged in that case but open to critical analysis.

 I would be more interested in your subjective response concerning your relationship to these images rather than to guess my gender or sexuality.

Regarding the Lacanian issue, I am not rejecting such a theory but rather as a skeptic and a pragmatist, I wish to test meta narratives and not blindly accept them. For Lacan the gaze lies not within the subject but within the object and in this sense I perceive such a reference point not straight on but along the anamorphic line. In reference to feminist theory and the male gaze, you can determine your own position; I do not wish to assume or impose my own. Having said this, the debate as to whether it is possible to have a female gaze is an interesting one, Would you consider the female gaze to be nothing more than an assimilation of the hegemony of male dominance or do you think it possible for women to objectify men? Regardless, these images skew age, gender, race, how does this affect your relationship to these images (objects)?

Wayne

I have more to add. Consider our ethical relationship to beauty. A word spoken in corners, quietly hushed tones fear the critics for daring to utter such a word (i.e. Hickey, Scarry et al being some of the bravest). The gaze is often associated with the reification of an object (a destructive gaze). But the gaze can only be considered so if the object is vulnerable, sentient, alive. I argue an artwork is non-sentient and therefore generally considered outside of this ethical responsibility.  People however are sentient, alive and vulnerable. These images are non-sentient (non-people) and so is art (regardless of one’s opinion of what the art is in this case). However, it is the human point of encounter or reception, which instigates life in art through the imaginative leap. In this sense, as with an object conferring beauty to you, it is not to the negation of lesser objects, rather one may recognize the fragility of the beautified object and recognize in this the care for lesser things, to notice those properties within the beautiful laterally confers care and attention to those lesser things in search for the particular.

Take these images as a point in case, if one has beauty conferred upon one’s self in noticing the beautiful in others, they defer to your care and protection. Is it not the case that in an artwork, what is non-sentient is given life through the act of perception or perhaps a mimesis of life (recalling the earlier discussion concerning the desire to repeat/copy)? This does not mean that the search for beauty in people reifies them. Conversely, the gaze and desire for beauty is life giving and not a destructive act.

Take for instance the previous discussion concerning feminist theory and the gaze. How can the gaze be destructive towards these images when the objectification argument falls down at the appearance of a convergence of such factors as sex age, ethnicity etc?

Wayne

_________________

Interesting a subject so vast, so complex - yet you try to pick some thing fro it to coincide with what you are doing! I see most art coming initially from something sentiment, but by the time it is transferred into an art piece, even through the most delicate of processes, it becomes a metaphor for the sentimental, all most lost destructive. If one were to compare it to beauty it would initially be based on ones taste, through there own subjective. Yet you could say that desire could be a cause for such beauty, beauty used in such a sloppy way.

As if one was to experience the beauty through the work, it would have to become more powerful than them, I mean engulf them, take over the space in which they are confined, this is no longer the beauty in which one would expect, yet the beauty within the way they passively talk back to you making them reflect later on what it is in you that may be present within them.

Yet this all so turns the coin to the other side could the beauty not exist with out the sublime?

Anonymous

________________________

From looking at these images I see the "gaze” being apparent in the way in which the "person" is looking directly back at you, as opposed to a female gaze, I think this is really only true, when there is a male present staring back at you, it makes me feel like they are almost watching me, especially when I am not paying them any attention.

I think it is possible for women to objectify men, especially when it comes to them being the dominatrix, within the images. But when you have males layered upon females, its as though the viewer only of course if you were a women then perhaps you may feel as though the reverse role is being played in which the male gaze now takes place. But as a man I think it is very hard to get into character as a woman, to be able to see these through the female gaze- of course if one exists.

The images with in your space are no longer grouped making it harder to see some linear narrative/relationship between them. This placing has therefore made them harder to read for the viewer. Suggesting that each one has now become an independent art piece- in its own right!

They place on me a sense of attraction yet at the same time a repulsion to look at them as there obscurity has made them no longer seem real. (- But then that opens up the question to what is real! How would you depict the real with in your work - that is of course if it really exists?) I did not relise this at first but since studying them I have come to relise that by slight re-alignment of each image has caused them to have a disjointment to them. This makes me appreciate, the way in which we perhaps view people on the first time of meeting them - but in this case it would be in the first time in which I approached you about your images.

This then may me wonder how your thinking of moving forward with them, as perhaps as a suggestion - but if they were in an open space for people to interact with them in the way in which I have, I think perhaps it would make people more appreciative of others and the way in which we can communicate with one another based on these fake identities.

Anonymous

Hi, I've just spent a long time writing a response only to be timed out and lost it before sending!

Attempt two:

On the concept of the gaze, the according to Lacan, the gaze is split from the ocular act of looking, the gaze is an 'act' and therefore the object of desire, not necessarily the intended subject because this awareness of other and consequently one's desire has now been reduced to the 'object petit a' (partial object) as opposed to the specula image. Not because the partial object represents partiality biologically but because it is representative of partial functions which cannot be assimilated into one's narcissistic concept of self. This lack of a wholeness I feel is therefore within the realm of the imagination.

In your comment upon the relationship between people and the work, a physical space is also an opportunity for literal interaction with each other, which is a consideration I have yet to get my teeth into at this stage. However, one cannot avoid the ethical and political issues at stake when dialogue enters such an arena. What for instance are your views on democratization of art and artistic production? As Bourriaud would argue, a contemplative autonomous object, which is representatively totalitarian and subsequently closed, does not give the viewer a chance to complement them. However, one may argue that an encounter with an artwork is always open at its point of reception and therefore does not require literal interaction. Whether one considers the requirement to literally interact (with a work or with each other, a physical space does create closer relational spaces than those in a virtual one).

 However, Bourriaud is a formalist and as such requires a wholeness, an organic whole into which all forms inter-relate and fit into an harmonious whole (not dissimilar to a Marxist analysis of exchange except that information as commodity has replaced material production) within bourriaud's theory of form tagged 'Relational Aesthetics' he argues that there are no forms in nature, only in the gaze and it is for this reason that production is seen as a result of literal interaction whereby which the image is an act. Thus for him, art feeds into life not the other way around. However, I am more inclined to agree with theories of antagonisms (derived from the lacanian school with thinkers such as Chantalleand Mouffe Zizek, Popke et al). Notice the French connection here! If we are to view art as anything other than autonomous, I would think that a recognition of social estrangement is not going to produce any cultural contribution by being all convivial and happy clappy with each other. I therefore consider my role to be of careful consideration about what implications my ethical intentions have, what political implications there are and whether an aesthetic consideration can be justified!

Wayne

I think this concept of lacan gaze has been rather exhausted and purpose one which may be more up tune to what you are looking at in relation to your practice. That of Ann Kaplan, whom takes on board Lacans, yet in a more contemporary way, being - Kaplan attends to cross-cultural and transnational identities within what she calls a "diasporan aesthetics" that combines Western and non-Western narrative techniques. Expanding on her own reversionary work on the classical structure of "the gaze,” she theorizes both a radicalized gaze and the vitally distinct performance of "the look," a process which encourages a more intersubjective relation ability between persons, capable of displacing a dated and insufficient "oppressor/oppressed" dyad.

But why do you see lack of the wholeness in the imagination, because would one not see this from the images within the state they are in rather letting the images be imprinted into the imagination and then seen as lacking wholeness? Or is this your general view of the self, as in terms of the other being the dominate?????

Well democratization could mean so much in art if you let it over power the work, I suppose if you are making these images and not giving credit to the participants then it could raise such political views as to whom this work really belongs to, and perhaps if it was seen as a collaboration, then perhaps no one would be offended. That brings me onto ethical issues surrounding these images; it is as though you could be seen as messing with science in the way of playing "God" in terms of creating new entities through real beings! But then this is down to ones own views on such issues!

The space is that of no longer being virtual, having all the images there you become overpowered by them being all close together like some kind of prisoner of war camp, cramped in a tiny space, not having a chance to breath, these focus one to pick them up individually to rescue them from such horror, so I would say they are continuousally viewed as an open work, as each time you approach them the outcome from reaction and way in which they are picked up changes. - But then that opens up the discussion have you imposed this onto the viewer on purpose?

I have noticed that you seem to do a lot of reading into others points of views and then use these to access your own practice, do you think that perhaps if one did not know of all what you bring up would be able to interpretate these images and appreciate them for what you see them for?

I can simpafie with that of Bourriaud and that the image is an act, almost a act of ones own desire to make something, in the way a sculptor would imagine one being seen, or even through a performance, which I feel happens when your in the presents of these images and can manipulate by holding.

Anonymous

Hi Anonymous, some of your points have been discussed in my previous response but your last email was sent before I’d made the response so it is becoming a somewhat fragmented dialogue. In response to the above, yes I do like to read other people’s points of view; I am a pragmatist at heart. However, as most of my emails have intimated, I DO NOT attempt to use these ideas as a way to access my practice! These dialogues arose out of your assumptions via the images and therefore opened up a conversation concerning psychoanalysis, so just to be absolutely clear ‘I wish to test meta narratives and not blindly accept them’. I have no predetermined imposition of any single reading and this is perhaps the most fundamental premise. As for the displayed images, the space is simply storage at present and not the intended mode of presentation (a staging area). Concerning a curatorial (ethical) responsibility to the subjects (people) used, all are asked for their permission, anyone can take their own copy of an ‘other’ from my website, they have agreed to these images being available for public consumption (but not the original image, only the composite). This returns me to the point concerning ‘space’ currently these images are available in a virtual space, the act of looking is one of private consumption, the collaboration is temporal and not currently reduced to a fixed spatial/temporal physicality.

In response to your questioning why I do not perceive wholeness to the imagination, I would suggest that to envisage a whole implies limitations, boundaries and a ‘closed set of forms’, a Husserlien eidos rather than an unlimited semiosis. If as you suggested, the work is open then I would consider your question to be conflated. Perhaps what these images do if anything is posit such questions or debates about our position within the world, the images propose the interstice/hymen/gap as the tension between what appears heterogeneous and homogenous.

Wayne

Hi Anonymous, I've just spent a long time writing a response only to be timed out and lost it before sending!

Attempt two: (part of this email was sent yesterday, here it is in its full length).

On the concept of the gaze (and I would like to move on from this at some point if we may!), according to Lacan, the gaze is split from the ocular act of looking, the gaze is an ‘object’ (as stated previously), therefore the object of desire, not necessarily with the intended subject (images) because this awareness of other and consequently one's desire is supposedly reduced to the 'object petit a' (partial object) as opposed to the specula image (your imagined reflected image). Not because the partial object represents partiality biologically, but because it is representative of partial functions which cannot be assimilated into one's narcissistic illusion/concept of self. This lack of a wholeness I feel is reflected in your comment upon ‘dis-jointment’. Regarding your suggestion concerning the relationship between people and the work and the physicality of space, a physical space is also an opportunity for literal interaction with each other (which is a consideration I have begun to explore, but what is also of concern for me is also the 4^th dimensional aspect of temporality). However, one cannot avoid the ethical and political issues at stake when dialogue enters such an arena. What for instance are your views on democratization of art and artistic production?

You mentioned these images appearing to you as ‘art pieces in their own right’, that is an interesting observation as concerns over the autonomy of art (artifacts and artistic production) has plagued the art world for yonks! As Bourriaud would argue, a contemplative autonomous object, which is representatively totalitarian and subsequently closed, does not give the viewer a chance to complement them. However, one may argue that an encounter with an artwork is always open at its point of reception (argued by Bishop for instance drawing upon Eco’s theory of open work’ and therefore does not require literal interaction. Whether one considers the requirement to literally interact (with a work or with each other, a physical space does create closer relational spaces than those in a virtual one).

 However, Bourriaud is a formalist and as such requires a wholeness, an organic whole into which all forms inter-relate and fit into an harmonious whole (not dissimilar to a Marxist analysis of exchange except that information as commodity has replaced material production) within bourriaud's theory of form tagged 'Relational Aesthetics' he argues that there are no forms in nature, only in the gaze and it is for this reason that production is seen as a result of literal interaction whereby which the image is an act. Thus for him, art feeds into life not the other way around. However, I am more inclined to agree with theories of antagonisms (derived from the lacanian school with thinkers such as Chantalleand Mouffe Zizek, Popke et al). Notice the French connection here! If we are to view art as anything other than autonomous, I would think that a recognition of social estrangement is not going to produce any cultural contribution by being all convivial and happy clappy with each other. I therefore consider my role to be of careful consideration about what implications my ethical intentions hold, what political implications there are and whether an aesthetic consideration can be justified!

Wayne

P.S

In response to your second email on ‘beauty’, I do not agree that I am trying to pick something from ‘it’ to ‘coincide with my work’ I would rather suggest that it is an opening out of the questions regarding the concept. In contemporary terms, it is as arguable to be critical of the past decades of the anti-aesthetical works as it is to suggest that there could be a return to the problematic question of beauty!

As I mentioned when referring to Bourriaud (for whom he would wish to remove his formalist theory of ‘relational aesthetics’ from classical aesthetics) such a theory could also be considered in his way to the same democratic pursuit. Of course, as I mentioned, Bourriaud does point out ‘there are no forms in nature’ something once ascribed to the sublime, could now be more appropriately termed the ‘techno-sublime’. As our relationship to the world changes, the need for such fundamental questions continues (for me anyway). I ask you this, would you rather a world where beauty does not exist or even the utterance of beauty dared to be spoken of? The alternative for me is a banality. In addition, I would argue for a somewhat differing perception of beautifying experience. You suggest the over powering nature of beauty, at once I agree that when it is beholding to you and before you; that it is arresting. It is that age old concern that beauty is seductive and therefore not a straight path to the ‘good’. But I would further this to suggest a second stage, one that is energizing and dynamic, one that does not disable one’s care for lesser things (as mentioned earlier). Thus it is a more likely source for an equality of distributional justice (as with Ranciere but for differing reasons). Another point on this matter is that it is my understanding (if one uses classical examples), the sublime (as with Kant) is the male-ness dominating the beautiful (female) and so the female is not the over powering compared to its relationship with the sublime, thus as with much debates concerning feminism which even today people are rather quick to fall back upon. I consider the above two terms within the context of the cultural ideology. Today we live in a world, which is not easily shocked, a concept of the male patriarchy of the sublime as invisible has been reduced to the androgynous (as with iconography and popular culture). Although beauty may have once been seen as subordinate to the sublime, as within the modernist attitude. I prefer to consider (as Rolphe does), beauty remains inextricably linked, however it is the nature (or lack of) meaning in language which although weak refuses to be framed by discourse. More on the sublime to come, I think these images, as metaphor would make an interesting discussion concerning the post-human condition, for today I’m running out of time…

P.S. I will respond to your last two email concerning ‘names’ and aesthetics (from your research) tomorrow.

Kind regards,

Wayne

I think beauty exists everywhere we go, through everything we experience, I think one just needs to open there eyes wider to take it all in and see it for ones own self. But then of course it opens up the question of how such a concept can be categorized into such a closed in word. If only the world was fun of beauty then perhaps there would be no need for the sublime, But then of course if the sublime did not exists, there would be no need for beauty to either. So perhaps they both have to on equal levels to be able to justify beauty existing at all!

I suppose one could say that the post-human condition has got us all in some shape or form - for example the way in which this dialogue started on the wall and now technology has taken over and e-mail is a more diverse way of communicating. Even if there are slip ups in it...

N.B

One should never use nice pleasuranbys if one does not no one. It would be rude to assume, as we have already experienced what assuming could be seen as!

Anonymous

After doing some thinking, I came across an essay, which was looking at aesthetic experience and body awareness. Which seemed to be this next thing to jump out of your images after the initial conversation of the 'Gaze'. Illusion - it striked me as something which could be of some relevance to your work, perhaps you are already aware of it, but in the way of:

'Art and the dynamics of intrapsychic illusion', will explore the link between Milner's work on illusion (first fully expressed in the seminal 1952 paper, 'Aspects of Symbolism in the Comprehension of the Not-self') and Winnicott's account of the 'transitional object' and the 'potential space' (1951, 1971) I intend to show how both thinkers were intensely preoccupied with the developmental importance of the infantile illusion, together with the way that the child becomes able to recognize that there is a subjective and objective reality, negotiated by an 'in-between' area which Winnicott called the 'potential space'. This area relates to play, as well as to religious and aesthetic experience in adult life - indeed, the 'whole cultural field', according to Winnicott (1971).

This made me then think of these objects which are created by over layer images - as the potential space, like the time in between the process of a human being decided its gender, as these do not conceive of any written gender, through identity - by the process of names.

I don't know how relevant the next piece of text will be, because I am not aware of how your thinking works in relation to your images, as I have not actually really questioned how they came to this state, so perhaps you could fill me in. But I feel that these images are exploring awareness of others to there environment so perhaps it maybe of some use.

Milner's first book, A Life of One's Own (1934), was based on a diary she kept during the twenties, where she would write about the event, which had most affected her each day. Through these reflections she came to recognize what she called the 'wide' focus - a quality of awareness, which enabled her to perceive the world with greater enrichment and meaning, and was also found to be connected with intensified body awareness and a correspondingly heightened perception of reality. This heightened awareness could be reached only through an 'inner gesture' of letting go of the 'narrow' focus (that is, everyday, discursive thinking) and a deeper order would be revealed to her which sometimes had a very frightening quality - almost like a death itself - but when she submitted herself to it, it felt more like a liberation. This 'deeper order' (cf. Ehrenzweig's 'hidden order') was characterized by a sense of more fluid boundaries between self and the world - even to the point of subject-object union. As we shall see, this is a theme, which was to play an important part in her writings, as in Winnicott's thinking, especially with regard to understanding aesthetic experience and the way in which creative perception is fostered by a negotiation of the 'gap' between self and other, involving the active surrendering of conscious ego control.

Anyway would be good to know whether I am interpretating what I sense from these images, relates to ways in which you are directing your thinking to.

Anonymous

Hi Anonymous, yes I agree in the concept of the gap, I would consider this to be the locus for the viewer/participant (in relation to these images, the object for me lies within the gaze). However, much has been written over the decades since Freud, Klein, Winnicott and object relation’s theories. Other terms by later thinkers include the ‘hymen’ and the ‘screen’, I suppose one can take any theory (psychoanalytical, sociological, etc) in a deterministic fashion and skew it towards a given end. As with my original reply, I wish to challenge or test metta-narratives (or grand theories) so I am not really looking to ‘attach’ theory to artistic production, rather the other way around. However, I can entertain the idea of a Winnicottien ‘transitional space’ as a metaphor for a safe area for one’s creativity (with the exception that there is no invisible maternal protection. Although I do not consider these images to be the transitional object as a security blanket for me to deal with a separation anxiety from my mother (the desire to create a fantasy representative of this object of separation). For me, this act of creation is a prerequisite for connectivity with others or inter-subjectivity. One final point on Winnicott, incidentally, he grew up in Plymouth and had a keen interest in Darwin (the latter is the premise for another discussion concerning this work not yet touched upon).

I am pleased that after all this dialogue you have come to a point whereby you’ve realized you had not actually ‘questioned how they came to this state…’.

However objective and critically distanced form the questions of ‘why’ one attempts to be, the analysis must be viewed through the lenses of subjectivity. I will reflect upon that question and get back to you.

Wayne

Hi anonymous, thanks for all your input! I've not been able to check my emails for some time so I will need more time to write a deserving response. Hang in there for a few days and I'll address all your points in turn...

A quick thought, on the subject of names, they are obviously an important part of our identity and self-actualization, but if you had the opportunity to reinvent yourself (which you do in the context of our dialogues), what name would you chooses? Perhaps you may consider adopting a name?

regards,

Wayne

If I could choose a name in particular, I would choose the name Hilary, because I have always wondered what it would be like being of the other gender, to myself. But at the same time it would be quite difficult to tell what gender I am if I had this name. This also comes back to your images, and that they have no name/number? So perhaps that is why at first sight one would perhaps mistake them for someone trying to Swope themselves for the opposite gender.

I do not see the sense in adopting another name, as with the name Anonymous, it keeps one at arms length. So one cannot stereotype an image of one, as they do not have a name to put to the face, as in your images the "True" face of one does not exist.

Anonymous

Hi anonymous, I haven't forgotten about the other points to address, but I just wanted to quickly respond to this email. I agree, you don't require a name; I did only wish to know what you thought it would be (which you did, thanks). Hilary is not a name one hears much anymore, I once had a friend as a child whose surname was 'House', his mother was named Hilary, her husband was Arthur, (Arthur House when spoken sounds like 'half a house'!). Anyway, I’m digressing…

Picking up your point ‘… the true face… does not exist’. As with much art of the nineties, there was a resurgence of identity politics, the search for and expression of subjective truth and a representative return to the real. Post modernity at this time developed a human face. Plurality and multiculturalism in contemporary western society points to previously exclude others and their entry into the art world bringing with it a political question of democracy. Largely, any opposition to an expression of subjectivity is difficult to substantiate, how can anyone challenge someone else’s experience of the real? The problem is one can suggest that today, even subjectivity is commodifiable. With this in mind, the question turns to others firstly where I ask ‘at what point does my production of these images cease to be a public service and fall under the concept of art? (these images are the product of my labour at no charge, the work could not exist without people as material’. Secondly ‘does a truth exist? The images are representative of plurality and yet as they increase exponentially they appear to move closer towards homogeneity’. These are questions I would like to explore with you…

Regards,

Wayne

After the last e-mail I thought a little more about 'self/other". This made me realise that are we discussing the ideal existence against one of non-existence? But then I thought that perhaps one could not exist with out the other! Which lead me to believe that wholeness and self actualization is classified as self and for one to exist the opposite must also exist, signifying nothing, emptiness and therefore seem as outside the centre of identity and authority. Which therefore made me realize that your images possess both of these traits leading me back to the question of are they images of one existence- which yes they were to start with, but now they are non-existent as human beingings in the real world. That is of course if there is a definition for " real". One of which I am still trying to find!!!

Anonymous

Hi Anonymous, just a quick email. I really appreciate all your input but I'm having trouble keeping up with the emails as more have been sent before I've had a chance to respond so the narrative is becoming confused. I'm going to respond to each one in turn and try to put them into a sense of order (although non-linear writing is still a possibility). Once I've done this today, we should be up to speed and we can try to take it in turn from then on...

Ta,

Wayne

Anonymous...doc (134.1 KB)

Hi Anonymous, as there are a number of emails to respond to I thought it easier to attach a word document which has all the correspondence in. I have tried to place them in order of points raised (therefore a couple of responses are not in chronological order). So if you take the last response in the document to be the most recent, we can carry on from there.

Wayne

N.B. – Your attempt to reorder them and add the missing few comments, so back to where we were.

Hi Anonymous, we now seem to be converging on similar concerns! After all the rhetoric and academic discourse (essentialist vs anti essentialist, aesthetic vs anti-aesthetic amongst other polarities), I think we have returned to my original proposition of what we may be (not in the avant-garde sense). To summarise, these images are a starting point without an end game. If one wishes to consider the scientific question of the artistic field (and in reference to your comment upon the transition from paper to email) then perhaps my opening out of questions can be allegorized as mapped out from Krauss’ (Euclidean model) expanded field into a non Euclidian fractal one. Returning to my first response ‘repetition’ which the expanded field utilizes, is transformed into the fractal scale (as in chaos theory) which offers endless permutations this does not necessarily deny oppositional structures but rather can offer new models for such discourse and more importantly, new possibilities not yet discovered.

Wayne

If this is the case, where are they going? I realize that at the moment you are using the space as just storage, but to you think it is necessary for repetition, as are you hoping that perhaps you might get something different from what has already occurred or that perhaps you might find a closer connection to some of these images, with that of your own. I have noticed that these images have been selected very closely with links to certain shapes in faces, I am not sure weather some of these people may be connected in some way, perhaps through relationships, as to yourself or other people as in terms of couples. I would be interested to know, perhaps that might help me to read into how they interlink with one another. Or perhaps they don't actually link at all, making them sub-conscious discussions. Who knows!

The possibilities, which may not be discovered are perhaps right in front of you as the longer you look, new things emerge. From just picking these images up they became tactful and I almost felt that I owned this person for some short time, but then putting the photograph back, I gave the responsibility back to you once more.

I wondered if perhaps anyone has been concerned with the ethics behind them or just generally been moved in a negative way by them?

Anonymous

We haven't discussed value in art on these works yet!

Looking at these images as art pieces, what type of value would you put on them. As at the moment they are available for anyone to just come and pick up, but would you think that perhaps they need extra security for them. This makes me wonder have any gone from the space yet, How would one know if they had.......

Do you think that High Capitalism in art is justifiable in your work, or would this depend on the viewer/buyer, do you think that this subversives, works of art. Or are they only sellable depending on ones own taste, - who knows I suppose one should trusts one instinct in the manner of buying art work.

Anonymous

Hi Anonymous, today my brain cells are running at reserve but I will do my best to offer a deserving response!

Regarding these images and the questions concerning their relations is an interesting (let alone deeply complex) one; you refer to the act of ‘looking’. I suppose in one respect it concerns the issue of context. A formalist analysis would take its premise as with the morphological one in that evolution and reproduction is analyzed on the basis of features (effect) rather than cause. One can also make parallels to art theory although it is important to note that this can only be allegorized (the question of what theory is, would need to be the subject of a separate discussion), as with the family resemblance theory.  The family resemblance approach depends upon noticing interweaving strands of resemblances; this theory spearheaded by Weitz is based upon a neo-Wittgensteinien view of open work.

However, Mandelbaum would argue that this is a misinterpretation. The same eye color does not suggest a relative. It is determined by inheritance i.e. genetics. Remember that I am speaking within analogy but the following paragraph will lead back to my point about context.

Such a genetic analogy requires definition to be a non-manifest property not a glancing one. Carroll views the non-manifest property as ‘artistic intention’, or ‘decontextualized’. Carroll argues the family resemblance approach only attends to the manifest decontextualized properties of objects of comparison, thus he suggests ‘…instead of searching for …the manifest, decontextualized  (relational) properties… Dickie suggests…exploring the non-manifest, context informed (relational) properties…

Given our previous discussion concerning where the work lies(without getting into a neo Marxist debate concerning artistic labour and free spaces), context is not to be so easily pinned down, given the chaos ensuing in the expanded field, duration is as much about context as the spatial. People who submit images over time are still ongoing and as such, it is a process not a finished product. Note that some of the above references to theory are concerned with the debate as to whether art can or cannot be defined, when the work is in such a loose framework, it is still an ongoing debate.

However, returning to your question of selection; I will firstly suggest that my role is a matter for a much more complex debate over ‘death of the author’ and all that which would detract from your enquiry. In discussion with a student yesterday, he pointed out how the range of images and cross-pollination provides a clearer frame of reference to deduce who was merged with whom (even if this person did not know any of the original persons, the frame of reference would still be available for abduction). Given this, and for the need for some ambiguity to avoid the ‘so what?’ question I am currently giving serious consideration to this but I am not yet at a point of reconciling the paradox’s (where autonomy/heteronomy, heterogeneity and homogeneity) are to be resolved. Perhaps it is not necessary for me to do so, or for me to be the one who decides this in the end. This concern then raises others such as the concern of art as failure (again the topic for a deeper debate).

Your question about the ‘ethics’ and effects on the viewer (I assume you are referring to the participants comprising the images), it has been of great importance to provide the participant with an informed choice thus avoiding abuse on my part, there was a recent occasion whereby I failed to fully inform a participant and in doing so I inadvertently caused the individual to feel vulnerable. I have since apologized. This brings me back to my earlier issue of lateral regard, to take care of these images as they belong to other people.

Wayne

Hi Anonymous, I’ll make this one brief as my previous response is yet to be replied to. I agree with Hickey, art and money are two separate things. Value is a socially constructed notion; it is an investment of faith where you transfer it from one universe to another. Money is a sign, pieces of paper are just pieces of paper (think about the Chapman brothers drawing on peoples’ bank notes and giving them back to the public at the recent frieze in London, basically they paid for the privilege by allowing their monies to be defaced). Here one can make a comparison to my labour. As Damien Hirst said once ‘, art is about life, the art world is about money…the two things should be separate’ not a direct quote but (as with all references actually) one from memory. If someone did take these images, yes it is my loss but as with all stuff in the world, it is in a state of flux and re-use so in that sense I am not concerned. Anyway, they all exist in a virtual space available for anyone to copy and/or appropriate.

Wayne

In addition to my last response, what is your view on art and money?

When art is being given a value in terms of money, I think it is never justified! In terms of the time and quality of a piece for example Jackson Pollocks laborious strokes and drips of paint, have only recently been seen as valuable in terms of money, where as a line on a piece of paper claiming to be of Picasso would be seen as so unique so worth more. Also I find very patrinicsing to artists work is when art dealers will only take an interest in it if galleries are. It seems like no one has the balls to stand up for what they like or want even if it is not what is making the bigger money. I suppose its like most things, it’s all about money, and there is no value for money in art. Unless of course you are dead, or you are buying into this corrupt world.

This then opens up the question is "art for art sake", Well that’s left up to the artist...

But I do remember a good case for this once, I went to an art and crafts tent at a show, and this so called artist, was selling her work, but you could also higher her out to produce some on the premisise art. What she would do is do a seminar about the work she does, - Well this sounded ok, But then the really money making part then comes into play, she would then demonstrate how she made these pieces- by the way based on her experience within the place and the emotion around her. So this made me wonder what a great idea, but that was exactly it, she was soing this for a great way of making money, but her paintings were worse than that of a oil pastel smudging session. This made me wonder how could one get away with this. Well if people were to see that they were getting value for money than it obviously sounded great - What a con!

Also it makes me wonder that if someone if interested in ones work it can be come rather restricting in terms of that is what they want constantly making it very hard to progress and move outside of ones own comfort zone. As you are interested in repetition do you think it would affect you in the same way if an art dealer were to approach you on your work?

Anonymous

Given that you have only merged two people together do you think that from what you already have, you would consider merging more than two faces together? This would perhaps take these away from actually having some kind of remembrance to an existing human and take the cause of evolution even further, away from Darwin’s initial theory, and into a more scientific concept!

These people you give reference to are they artists two or philosophers in art practice.

Anonymous

The images have seemed to have gone! Do you think this is a move away from repetition and towards minimalism?

Anonymous

When things have gone, but as you said not forgotten, that leaves a trace of something, which was once there.

The idea behind luggage tags are that they are for a purpose a journey, one of which it does not know. When one sees nothing left in a space one sees it as an end, and end of the beginning a new start maybe on the way to what once existed, weather in the form of a new media or through a progression of what one existed.

As the week has un folded nothing else has appeared, I wondered what perhaps was going to take shape with the images that seemed to being reproduced, and now have all vanished/ perhaps stolen?

I suspect that perhaps you have either stopped work altogether or are having a break that is perhaps why you have not replied in the last week, or perhaps you feel that this work has concluded its self and should be almost a metaphor of how the pictures have vanished.

If you are still getting these e-mails then perhaps you may share your views on whether things vanish or just get missed placed?

Anonymous

Hang in there anonymous, I haven't forgotten about you I just simply don't have time to reply as yet, I'll get back to you next week at some point...

Wayne

Walking around no longer seeing these images, I get the feeling that perhaps they have dispersed out of this space, and are to be seen somewhere in public. Thinking about an empty space, is very similar to how one could be feeling at times. Being bombarded by all these other issues of research and 3rd year stuff - which of course I would not have a clue about. But makes one reflect onto the space, even thou there is not anything visible for one to read, one can understand how ones heads may won't to become in the sky, with the clouds just floating around away from it all.

And this is how I see the images now stuck between here and somewhere else.

Look forward to them becoming pinned down once again as production starts once again, when they have come down from those clouds.

Anonymous

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24 November 2007

09:20:55 o'clock GMT

Art?

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      #1 Comment from nnymsanonymous

      14/12/07 21:57 | Permalink

      In answer to your question when I go to view a piece of art what do I base my judgement upon, well it would be from my first initial reaction when looking at depending on what I am also looking at. I never read the title because I want to guess and translate it for myself, I suppose like a detective. Perhaps this can be sometimes a rather imprecise thing to do as the wrong judgement could be made upon the work, as it was initial upon yours.

      One Question answered, but another for you, this blog is not private, so therefore I see myself becoming vulnerable, to outside criticisms, plus others may start delving into this unknown. So perhaps if it was private, I would be happy to carry on this conversation!

      Anonymous

If a finger were pointed at the moon, one would assume that one would look at the finger and where it ends and then look at the moon. But imagine trying to do it to someone who is not pacifically in the same place as you they would not have the same view point. So I suppose perhaps we look for the moon within the area of sky that the person is pointing to rather than the end of finger.

Sometimes two sides to every story makes the work read in more depth as the creator and reproducer of these images, you may see them as an end to an equation or the begging to sometime much bigger. Ever way it would be interesting to know how you are going to move these images further? Unfortunately I could not open the attachments, which you sent me.

I have answered one of you earlier questions on your blog, but as in my reply on the blog, I do not wish to comment on it further as it is a public blog.

Perhaps you have thought about merging Father Christmas and his reindeer’s faces together as of the time of year??

Anonymous

Hi Anonymous, sorry about the blog thing, I accidentally set it as public instead of private, I can't seem to change it back but I'm in the process of constructing a new website and will create a private forum for us to continue, it should be ready by Jan 08. So for now, we'll return to email. Re the finger pointing at the moon, I agree, all our positions and perspectives are relative and determined by how one defines and relates one's position in the world. The philosopher, martial artist and actor Bruce Lee used this analogy when tutoring a student in the film 'Enter the Dragon', ...when bowing never take your eye off your opponent but this is also as a matter of respect.

 I don't think you are wrong to avoid reading descriptions of artworks but sometimes the text may be part of the art itself making it difficult to construe something as art when its connectivity with other spheres is rhizomatic (Olafur Elliason likes to do that amongst others working in similar ways). The finger and moon analogy are also apt here, it is about focus, to be mindful of one's surroundings, semantically, somatically and pragmatically. Where do I see the work going?

That partly depends upon you. I understand your aversion to writing something that is for public consumption but then your initial comment left for me was posted in the middle of a large space for all to see. The fact that you are anonymous continues to protect your identity, here; I have a number of questions. Is it rather you prefer this relationship to be an exclusive one? Do you feel 'others' threaten this relationship? How would you feel if others could observe but not interact with these conversations? As I mentioned at the beginning of these dialogues, you are now part of the work. In this way, I perceive these writings to be collaborative and reciprocal, this brings me on to probably the most fundamental question yet posited, what are we doing here?

Trust is the foundation for productive/positive relationships, as with the images, these texts are the property of our interaction; however unlike the images, you own my words as I own yours, with no contract to speak of, no boundaries set from the start, you are at as much liberty to do with my words what you will I as I with yours. As disembodied voices we cannot identify ourselves face to face, not subjected to the gaze of the other in any sense of the word. This is in contrast to the consensual offerings of others' images. How do you feel about that? We have argued, cogitated, debated and assisted one another in our dialogues, if that isn't collaboration, I don't know what is! One last thought about what kind of exchange this is. I may have earlier mentioned the work/leisure issue, how do you see our exchanges in relation to this issue and in relation to the participants of images?

Regards,

Wayne.

P.S. Santa and Rudolph? Sounds like the offspring of bestiality, even I wouldn't do that!

Do I rather this relationship to be exclusive? Only in terms of that if there are more voice being herd then the work would therefore be drawn away from the discussions in which we are having. It would then become a place of exchanging ideas criticism upon others work, and last of all no longer anonymous as humans are very inquisitive it would mean you becoming aware of me and my practice. Turning this relationship into one of public rather than that of what it is Casusality - Being a directional relationship between one event (called cause) and another event (called effect) Which is how I see this dialogue through the way in which topics of your work are brought up and not always answered but then feed into something else creating this continuous flow of cause and effect.

I do not feel threatened as if I did I would not of contacted you in this way in the beginning, I just think that this constant chanellgeing work in this way helps to broaden ones own initial views of the art work. Plus I think that others would not appreciate you work for what it really says about it. And for them to come into the conversation right now would just make everything which has come and gone before and been resolved pointless as it would therefore create a new beginning which could mean a lot of time has been wasted in resolving where the work is now.

I think that writing something for the public to see in such a big space, was not a problem as something so small you will find people don't really notice it, but when it comes to something so big as the Internet it leaves open the doors to any outside interventions and criticisms. Which could make the new reader to this work unaware of what has been before and therefore leave a bias opinion of what is now visible.

If others could observe the conversations then that would be the same in my opinion as the public going to an art gallery and observing a piece of art - as you have already stated from the beginning that this is a collaborative piece of work, and as they correspond with the visual therefore I agree to you using them in what ever way you want, with in your work. But as long as I stay as anonymous as I am as other views to the work could actually stereotype me for having opinions, which I may not actually hold within the real world!

I see this as a way of discussing issues or debates about your work in relation to the world around us. I try to challenge you in a way in which you may have become ignorant to your work to do so. I try to act at times as if you may of said things you haven't but by trying at times to read between the lines, I try to confuse. Like the way in which art can. Trying to focus on how the view may see the work, almost acting as a conscious, but no longer questioning what you are doing. I am mealy here to unravel what lies beneath these initial images, with dialogue to assist in the way in which artists think or perhaps don't - as not knowing you makes it harder to see how the initial thinking behind these images came about. But from these dialogue I have a sense that you are a deep thinker and perhaps others are not sure on how to dive into depicting what you maybe saying of thinking.... - But remember I am not analyzing you just merely interesting on what you have to say on issues surrounding your work.......

I feel that because we are not subject to each other’s gaze, it does not matter what we may really think, but can therefore be free with in our thinking and conversations to one another. Not identifying with one another gives us space and freedom with no boundaries to what we may discuss. As when identities are consoled there is no way in which one can hurt another, as there are no emotional ties attached.

I see this exchange as move, which is tangelaneged to the way in which it moves forward from one thing to another, but at the same times still has the backbone of the initial images which were discussed, and the images and they seem to move forward in the same way in which the dialogues do.

I hope this has answered all those questions in which you asked - I now have one, and that is do we really need to define what this is about or may be becoming, why not just let it take on its own form - in what ever way in maybe, in terms of where it is going?

Anonymous

Hi Anonymous, happy New Year!

Thank you for your response, I am pleased that you are prepared to allow these conversations to be for public consumption without others adding to it. If we take a Barthe-esque death of the author-birth of the reader perspective in the reception of these dialogues then the text is inherently as writable as it is readable even if the reader cannot add physical text, this dissolves to some extent the active/passive relationship between producer (us) and consumer (them) respectively to ‘pro-sumer’.

In answer to your question

…do we really need to define what this is about or may be becoming, why not just let it take on its own form - in what ever way it maybe, in terms of where it is going?

                                                                                    (Anonymous, 2007: 31)

 I am not adverse to unpredictability that is the exciting part! One may argue (as I think you are suggesting) that to define this situation as art would find us caught in a deterministic productivist snare (which I think I mentioned much earlier), but to be fair it was you who asked where I see these images going and thus the text is implicated! As you stated in your last response

 ‘…If others could observe the conversations then that would be the same in my opinion as the public going to an art gallery and observing a piece of art…’ Ibid.

Perhaps what construes such a labeling is therefore determined by its point of reception (which poses another question, namely must something be exhibited in the gallery in order to be considered art in the first place?). I see these dialogues within the wider context of my practice to be a process, the process is better described (not defined) as context rather than content based; as you described your interest as ‘…what you have to say on issues surrounding your work’ ibid. I do not believe that it is necessary as an artist to feel pressured into dissolving authorial control completely (which many relational artists attempt, one reason can be due to the pressure to conjoin politics with ethics where the ethics in our ‘post political age’ is seen as democratic) which is a move away from my original assertion; neither do I intend to impose any truth content or utopian ideal upon the recipient but rather to expose these strategies and the tension. The tension here is between the artist’s experience and knowledge in creating the conditions of reception and the recipients’ comparable experience and knowledge, which may not have been gained under the same conditions. This tension enables the recipient to construct one’s own framework for investigating such conditions for themselves. If art is metaphor and these texts can be contextualized within the same sphere, then these dialogues are a good example. So yes, without an agenda, contract or common sense consensus let’s continue without teleology….

 Wayne