Monday, April 25, 2011

Bracha Ettinger

Bracha Ettinger was the artist/theorist/psychoanalyst
"an opening of multiplied occurrence happens at once within a space of subjects."
http://nowfroth.blogspot.com/2009/10/eurydice-bracha-ettinger.html

Bracha Ettinger was the artist/theorist/psychoanalyst I mentioned in class, and there is a good section on her work in a book by the art historian/cultural analyst Griselda Pollock, 'Encounters in the Virtual Feminist Museum: Time, space and the archive' (Routeledge, 2007), which is in itself eerily relevant to lots of what we seem to be talking about in class.






The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is central to Ettinger's work, she posits a distinction between an 'Orphic' and a 'Matrixial' gaze in the art-viewing experience: as we look back (in time), like Orpheus looked behind him in the myth, we consign Eurydice (the viewed subject) to objectivity, abandoned at the mouth of Hell. Ettinger's series entitled 'Eurydice' (1994-8) uses photographs (sometimes of her mother, for example as a young woman in Lodz in 1937-8), which she photocopies, interrupting the copying process so the photocopic dust does not fix to the paper. Crucial to her theory (the bit I forgot) of ''reconnaissance'', a word which the artist splits up into its constituent parts (re-co-naissance), a 'co-re-birthing' of subjectivity, Ettinger then uses tiny horizontal brush strokes of coloured paint to 'join up' the gaps in the dust, to build a a membrane between the image looking out, and the gaze of the viewer. Pollock says it better: "colour in its vibration creates space, and the space it creates becomes an affective threshold that reaches out to embrace the viewer in a thickening of what lies between viewer and image, now and then/m, that binds seer and seen, world and subject, image and psyche.''





The Matrixial gaze (as an alternative to the Orphic aggression of looking as possessing), is an idea which is linked to Levinas' idea of 'matrixial painting', and to say it with Pollock once again, it is related to a way of looking in which "our unsighted eyes become what she [Ettinger] calls 'erotic aerials' of the psyche.''



Bracha Ettinger 'Matrixial Borderline' Polyptych, 4 Panels With 25 Elements Mixed Media on Paper, Plaxiglas, Metal, 160 x 35 cm, 1990-1991
Bracha Ettinger 'View of Installation, Pompidou Centre, 1996

Bracha Ettinger , overview of solo exhibition at Freud Museum, London 2009
Bracha Ettinger 'View of Installation, Pompidou Centre, 1996




創傷年代的美學感同與見證


Aesthetic Wit(h)nessing in the Era of Trauma


http://artouch.com/artco/story.aspx?aid=2010050618206
Griselda Pollock‧ 翻譯/倪明萃








伽爾Alfred Jaar│靜寂之音The Sound of Slience 2006(橫濱國際媒體映像祭提供)

節錄



在今日的藝術,我們已經從幻象移轉至創傷。當代美學,正從陽具崇拜結構轉變為母體界(matrixial sphere)。我們背負著無比沉重的創傷(進入21世紀),藝術的美學感同和見證,讓創傷意識浮現於文化表層。一些當代藝術的實踐,帶進了母體的連結來處理難以分擔的他者創傷和愉悅的困境。我們這個時代,經由藝術作品傳遞的美—我要再次強調我們的時代,因為我們活在巨大創傷移轉效應的年代,創傷議題吸引、啟發不同的藝術創作—帶來理解情感作用的新可能,並產生新的藝術效應。這個美學近乎倫理學,超越了藝術家的意識控制。



—愛婷爵(Bracha Ettinger)









雷奈Alain Resnais│夜與霧Night and Fog(影像擷取畫面) 紀錄片 32mins 1955(本刊資料室)

我以詮釋這段引述自愛婷爵的理論的一個段落,開始今天的演講。我認為愛婷爵是當今最重要的藝術理論家與藝術家之一。這段引言之始,愛婷爵斷言今日的藝術已經從幻象(來自想像)移轉至創傷(真實)。今天嚴肅的藝術不在創造和想像,而在面對真實—來自恐怖行動、恐懼的經驗、災難、歷史的創傷,以及面臨種種全球性威脅的後遺症。在這段引言中,愛婷爵引介她的核心理論:母體界。這是一個基進、嶄新的女性主義理論,關於我們如何能經由承認共同的人性而非堅持差異,來理解並同情他者和他者的痛苦,進一步分擔、承受、感同身受,共同創造未來。



一些當代藝術的實踐,帶進了母體的連結來處理難以分擔的他者創傷和愉悅的困境。





因此,當代藝術創作要求我們思考他者的創傷—他人、其他時代、其他的歷史、那些我不熟悉、不是我自己的傷痛。他者的創傷能被分擔、理解的程度有限,那是根深蒂固地屬於他人的。但是藝術能試圖找出產生母體式連結(matrixial alliances)的方式,讓觀者主體可能意識、感受到他者之痛,並願意部分承擔。這並不是同情,也非同理心,並非讓觀者覺得好過或成為更好的人或更善解人意,而是關於美學邂逅的特定方式,以藝術創作開啟介於現在、過去,我們、他們之間的界限,開創一個共同分享的邊界空間,承認接受不同的人、時間、空間之差異,但在倫理上讓彼此能容易、願意感同對方的創傷並讓我們想去瞭解、經歷它。





我們這個時代,經由藝術作品傳遞的美—我要再次強調我們的時代,因為我們活在巨大創傷移轉效應的年代,創傷議題吸引、啟發不同的藝術創作—帶來理解情感作用的新可能,並產生新的藝術效應。這個美學近乎倫理學,超越了藝術家的意識控制。





出乎意料地,愛婷爵在此提出美的概念。對愛婷爵而言,美是藝術的倫理道德能力,能啟發她所謂的回應能力(response-ability)—對他者的人性、他者的脆弱、對暴力的殘酷之下所危及的人性的回應能力。愛婷爵並不視此作用為藝術家的意圖、善意或政治觀點的結果,反而認為這種具備回應他者的道德能力,來自於形式和美學過程中引起共享的情感狀態的方式。創傷研究極為關注悲慟、憂鬱、焦慮等情感狀態。學者已注意到他們所稱的「情感轉向」,和1968年之後由符號學和解構主義主導學界的「語言學轉向」形成對比。在當代文化和視覺研究領域中,情感已形成了新的焦點。這是我們應更徹底地在美學和藝術史領域中思考情感因素的時刻,並探討什麼是所謂的生命情感狀態(life- affects),以此抗衡在我們的後創傷文化中,死亡情感(death- affects)的沉重力量。





更多詳細內容,請見第212期《典藏‧今藝術》5月號。

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