1.27.2004
thought of the day revisited
i just wrote and deleted a long post about empathy and difference that got into deleuze, werner herzog and my relationship with my cat. suffice to say it strolled into sucky town pretty quick. anyway, i've been wondering if i spend too much time dressing up my thoughts with references... so here it is (straight. no chaser. well. almost.)...
in my studio, and in my life (or whatever), i'm pretty preoccupied with these two notions (empathy and difference). i like the warmth which attends my concept of empathy, and i think it's something i find lacking in a lot of the art i enjoy (note: it's not lacking in contemporary art though, in a general sense... but i want to steer clear of the nouveau sincerity/sentimentality that's been fashionable of late). at the same time, there's a component to empathy of appropriation which strikes me as problematic. in the sense that it seeks to make that which it confronts like itself. incorporating familiar traits to ease the horror of difference. this often results in crude mimicry dressed up as profound emotion. a particularly bitter pill for me.
*this is why i was posting about my cat. at its worst, a pet is the perfect example of this (and deleuze-- rather fittingly-- hated pets).*
anyway, i'm looking towards examples (in art, in life, in my cat... in your brain, dear reader) of empathy that are indifferent-- or at least resistant-- to this easy-way-out of appropriation. and luckily i've found several of late, such as lynne ramsey's brilliant film morvern callar. the film has a fairly pervasive sense of the anomalous. appropriately, many of the negative reviews of the film fault it for failing to get "under the skin" of its main character.
i'm considering, to greater and greater a degree, the value of attempting to emote from without. one of the great strengths of a film like morvern callar (which i assure you i will post more about soon) is its ability to recognize the latent violence of an attempt to "get under one's skin." meaning the dissective elements which formulate alongside any sort of relationship (the "figuring-out"). instead, ramsey ignores this sort of approach all together. instead, she tells the story of a fundamentally inexplicable woman-- and manages to do so with deep care and concern.
i hope i'm not evoking some sort of antiquated formalism here. "aesthetic disinterest" doesn't move me in the least. to complicate things further, if one is to remain fascinated with someone or something, there is inevitably an element of investigation at work. an active curiosity that i see as more positive than "dissection," and less lazy than "meaninglessness," or some such thing. but it's hard to define these states, and to what extent to utilize them in my work as an artist. i guess i'm just increasingly curious about those complex moments where--following initial, eager enthusiasm-- the comforts of explanation fail to set in. at their best, such moments are neither cold nor horrible. they are distant in a meaningful way.
in my studio, and in my life (or whatever), i'm pretty preoccupied with these two notions (empathy and difference). i like the warmth which attends my concept of empathy, and i think it's something i find lacking in a lot of the art i enjoy (note: it's not lacking in contemporary art though, in a general sense... but i want to steer clear of the nouveau sincerity/sentimentality that's been fashionable of late). at the same time, there's a component to empathy of appropriation which strikes me as problematic. in the sense that it seeks to make that which it confronts like itself. incorporating familiar traits to ease the horror of difference. this often results in crude mimicry dressed up as profound emotion. a particularly bitter pill for me.
*this is why i was posting about my cat. at its worst, a pet is the perfect example of this (and deleuze-- rather fittingly-- hated pets).*
anyway, i'm looking towards examples (in art, in life, in my cat... in your brain, dear reader) of empathy that are indifferent-- or at least resistant-- to this easy-way-out of appropriation. and luckily i've found several of late, such as lynne ramsey's brilliant film morvern callar. the film has a fairly pervasive sense of the anomalous. appropriately, many of the negative reviews of the film fault it for failing to get "under the skin" of its main character.
i'm considering, to greater and greater a degree, the value of attempting to emote from without. one of the great strengths of a film like morvern callar (which i assure you i will post more about soon) is its ability to recognize the latent violence of an attempt to "get under one's skin." meaning the dissective elements which formulate alongside any sort of relationship (the "figuring-out"). instead, ramsey ignores this sort of approach all together. instead, she tells the story of a fundamentally inexplicable woman-- and manages to do so with deep care and concern.
i hope i'm not evoking some sort of antiquated formalism here. "aesthetic disinterest" doesn't move me in the least. to complicate things further, if one is to remain fascinated with someone or something, there is inevitably an element of investigation at work. an active curiosity that i see as more positive than "dissection," and less lazy than "meaninglessness," or some such thing. but it's hard to define these states, and to what extent to utilize them in my work as an artist. i guess i'm just increasingly curious about those complex moments where--following initial, eager enthusiasm-- the comforts of explanation fail to set in. at their best, such moments are neither cold nor horrible. they are distant in a meaningful way.
