The Rehabilitation of the Humiliated Object A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty Of Florida State University In partial fulfillment

Of the requirements For the degree of Master of Fine Arts In the Department of Art Of the College Of Visual Arts, Theatre & Dance By Stephen Hawks B.F.A., Valdosta State University April 2010

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the members of my review committee, Holly Hanessian (chair), Paul Rutkovsky, Kabuya Bowens, Carrie Ann Baade, and George Blakely. I have taken their guidance to heart. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the rest of the FSU Art and Art History faculty, both those I have had classes with and those I have simply seen their work and benefitted from their input. The benefit gained from participating in this community of artists, both the faculty and my fellow graduate students, has been immeasurable. Also, I would like to extend much gratitude to my family. Without their cooperation none of this would have been possible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Abstract: The Rehabilitation of the Humiliated Object.4 II. Introduction: Terrestrial, Spiritual, and Philosophical References.5 A. Craft, Zen the Made Object: The Parable of the Ox Herder.5 B. Painting: Goethean Color theory..6 C. Sculpture: Making Forms in space and Making Do...6 D. Theatre, Poetry and Music: the Lyrical and the Temporal7 E. Christianity: the Principle of Redemption and the Logos..8 F. The Consolations of Philosophy and the Hegelian Dialectic8 G. Transcendentalism East and West: Aghora and Gnosis..9 III. Historical and Contemporary Artistic References10 A. Modernist Influences.10 1. Theatre of Pain..10 2. Expressionism Art Brut and Minimalism10 B. Bataille and Informe..11 C. Steiner and Anthroposophy.11 1. The Goetheanum: Cosmology and Total Art11 2. Beuys and Tarkovsky...13 IV. Elaboration on Artists Work13 A. Journey and Return: The Installation and Environs13 1. The Gates...13 2. The Wall of Color...14 Chymical Wedding..14 Platonic Solids..15 Buddha Mind16 3. Sing to Me Now.17 4. Sail, Soil, Soul18 5. Color Theory...18 The Symbolic Significance of Color..18 Spectronomic Synchrony19 Empirical Content/ Western Yin Yang..19 6. Owning the 7 Pointed Star...20 7. Cosmic Conception...20 8. Terra Firma: Island of Parched Earth.20 9. Dark Crystals: Lost Plans of a Gone World...21 10. Arrival..21 The Abandoned Boat..22 A Ladder to the Sky.23 Reconstructed Tunnel of Light. 23 B. The Head of the Corner24 C. Logos Empiricus: April 9th Performance26 V. Conclusion27 VI. Notes.28 VII. Bibliography29.

I.

The Rehabilitation of the Humiliated Object

"All genuine art seeks the spirit. Even when art wishes to represent the ugly, the disagreeable, it is concerned, not with the sensory-disagreeable as such, but with the spiritual, which proclaims its nature in the midst of unpleasantness. If the spiritual shines through the ugly, even the ugly becomes beautiful. In art it is upon a relation to the spiritual that beauty depends." 1 This body of work emerged after much preparation, almost complete, in a single concentrated effort over several months, in the fall of 2009. It could not have been explained until after completion, nor, consequently, could it have suggested its working thesis for previous work and possible work of the future. The work developed intuitively, while reconstituting and revitalizing older work in a new form. Even titles and ideas from older works have been recontextualized. Much of the materials gathered were others discards. Thus obvious inference can be drawn from the physical works to the thesis statement, expressing the intention in creating these objects in their present form. This does not, however, explain the thesis entirely. First it is imperative to understand what is meant by the term humiliated object. This may be anything denied its spiritual content. This spiritual divestment or ultimate deconstruction is also spiritual process, born of necessity. The Object may be of the physical material world itself, or pass over to the made object, divested of, then reinvested with content, empathetic with the human, or the idea as object, finally the mind or creative consciousness, what the Greeks and the apostle John called the Logos. The process by which these objects are humiliated may be natural, existential, or transgressive. The flesh, the physical part of our existence, no matter how beautiful or healthy, or perfect in the classical or ideal sense, in its temporality, is ultimately subject to humiliation in the extreme as manifested in death and decay. The conscious awareness of this humiliation is, in part, what it means to be human. Objects, by process of critical scrutiny alone, endure this one important aspect of humiliation, but may also by the act of perceiving, find aid for future indemnity and ultimate rehabilitation.

II. Introduction: Artistic, Spiritual, and Philosophical References

Craft, Zen and the Made Object: The Parable of the Ox Herder Thirty years ago, before I began the study of Zen, I said, Mountains are mountains, waters are waters. After I got an insight into the truth of Zen through the instruction of a good master, I said, Mountains are not mountains, waters are not waters. But now, having attained the abode of final rest [i.e., Awakening], I say, Mountains are really mountains, waters are really waters. 2 Years of working in clay and other media have filled me with a direct understanding of materials and process. Parallel to my work with the transformative realms of nature and matter through art, I have involved myself with intellectual and meditative/spiritual pursuits. I now feel capable of transferring the inner life of mind and spirit to an external perceivable form. Art making in the traditional sense, has until recently, been concerned mainly with the making of aesthetic objects, objects whose utility, even in the objectified practices of past creations, lies with the conceptualized edification of humanity. A dualism arises in contemporary art practice, which blurs the line between what is and isnt art to some extent because the conceptual foundations of all art practice, indeed, of all creative endeavor, is not grasped. This aspect is the more simplistic side of object humiliation. My experience in crafts was influenced by folk crafts, primitive art, and archaic crafts from around the world. Earlier art/craft practices were linked for me in part by looking at nature and seeing how beauty manifests and resolves itself there and by looking at how other cultures resolve the paradox of the Ideal vs. the mundane, specifically Asian and Zen aesthetics. I received inspiration from the Zen koans and parables, specifically the Ox Herder story. This is often illustrated with a series of circular ink drawings depicting the herding, taming and release of the Ox as representative of the mind. Of the two basic versions, the

first ends with an empty circle, or nothingness, the second goes beyond nothingness.

Painting: Goethean Color theory In the fall of 2007, Oglesby Gallery exhibited a retrospective of my prior work. This included paintings influenced by the ideas of Goethe. Aside from literary works, such as Faust, Goethes important scientific works included: the morphology of bones, the morphology of plants, the ur-plant, and the phenomenology of color. His scientific investigations involved direct perceiving of the essential nature of things, their archetypes or ideal. Study of the lectures and writings of Rudolf Steiner led to investigation of Goethean color theory in its practical application to painting, then as objectified idea.

Sculpture: Making Forms in Space and Making Do My Art is informed by everything I encounter. A principle for understanding is to study even those things for which I have had an aversion. Influences include but are not limited to: primitive art, medieval art, alchemical illustrations, grail mythology, Modernism, Post Modernism, art process, cooking, sewing,

construction work, economics, cinema, Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, and artistic pursuits in writing, theatre, and music. In this thesis ceramic work, the idea of the humiliated object is related to my previous ceramic form sculptures. Among the original Expressionist Ceramic Artists I was most enamored of John Mason. His resent work is both a continuation of his past work and a reassessment of modernist aesthetics: The object as a vehicle for Ideas. Some of the original minimalists who have come to the very extremes of the object as idea, such as Sol Lewitt and Tony Smith, have come to similar visual resolves in recent works. One difference is the extent of direct involvement in the process of making, even when my main material, ceramics, began to test my limits, and force me to improvise with other types of fabrication and materials. These works began as investigation into the intrinsic nature of form and their relationships to other objects in space. Although these types of objects still retain intrinsic qualities they now emerge as symbolic references and signifiers, literal signposts, and markers.

MFA Studio 2008 Theatre, Poetry and Music: the Lyrical and the Temporal Much will have been gained for aesthetics once we have succeeded in apprehending directly-rather than merely ascertaining-that art owes its continuous evolution to the Apollonian/Dionysian duality, even as the propagation

of the species depends on the duality of the sexes, their constant conflicts and periodic acts of reconciliation 3 By including performance, video, and music, attention is drawn to three interrelated components: language, time, and the objectified persona as represented by the actor, or everyman. With injection of the performative element, the artistic objects become interrelated set pieces and props furthering the cumulative, purgative, even shamanistic or priestly act of rectification or rehabilitation, in the crisis of being, expressed in these humiliated objects both animate and inanimate. The lyrical evocation of language and music intersect and support the temporal progression towards catharsis. Theatrical presentation marries the probable causal condition with the possible realm of imagination.

Christianity: the Principle of Redemption and the Logos The concept of the logos can be found in both Greek philosophical discourse and Christian scripture. From the Greek it may be translated as word or reason. In the Gospel of John it connotes the Word of God, or principle of divine reason and creative order, identified with the second person of the Trinity incarnate in Jesus Christ. The Logos is an idea and a being, the archetypal creative being. Western spirituality relies in part on the principle of redemption. The spiritual/ terrestrial being, fallen into error, by an act of acceptance or submission, may be enveloped in the healing, transformative, and protective power of divine grace. A long history of sacrificial and redemptive rites culminates in the supreme sacrifice of the original divine Logos, the quintessential humiliated object. The passion of Christ, as depicted in the New Testament, parallels classic Greek drama and its origins in sacrificial rites.

The Consolations of Philosophy and the Hegelian Dialectic Marx said, that to Hegel the idea is the demiurge of the world. The real world is only the extreme phenomenal form of the idea. With me the idea is

nothing else than the material reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought. 4 Since my teens I have pondered opposites, going so far as to jokingly develop a theory of opposites. I later realized that I was describing the nature of paradox, more recently becoming aware that what I perceived had been expounded on in Hegelian Dialectic, simply stated as: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Hegelian Dialectic serves as context for the present thesis, culminating in the proposed resolution of absolute paradox. In the present age, obsession with material causality overshadows all dissenting views. It is almost impossible to be free of indoctrination. Stubbornness keeps me from succumbing to materialist philosophy, but the tools of logic support that stubbornness.5 The crisis of consciousness created by materialist philosophy, epitomized in the quote from Marx above may, however, serve some purpose. When things are divested of spiritual content, or dignity they suffer extreme, if not absolute humiliation. This humiliation exists in a world dominated by existential materialism. Through materialist objectification we become our own isolated subject, proving autonomy of consciousness in the act of self-awareness. This work reconciles my own materialist indoctrination with a self-determined, holistic view. Transcendentalism East and West: Aghora and Gnosis In East and West there are paths of careless excess and disciplined asceticism, both intending to lead to revelation. Ugliness serves an important purpose both in life and in art. The extinguishing of desire through excess and satiation, contemplation of the demise of all physical forms, and a nearness to death lead to identification with the objectified world in a state of ultimate humiliation. In understanding this relationship to natural and fabricated objects, two spiritual streams inform this work: the Gnostics in the west and Aghora, a Hindu sect, in the east. The Gnostics, through various unusual, even abhorrent means, sought to reunite with the original divine being, from which light was stolen by an evil being to create this world. Much dualism in western thought, as well as western transcendentalism may be traced to Gnosticism. The Aghora, 9

uncharacteristic of eastern spirituality, embrace this world, which they see as one with the divine. What these both have in common and what unite them with my thesis is that they are both culturally and spiritually transgressive.

III.

Historical and Contemporary Artistic References Modernist Influences Theatre of Pain

When the visitor first enters the installation the intended feeling is reverence and calm, not the calm of a mild spring day, but the calm after much suffering and pain, when there is finally some relief or acceptance. When I first heard about Artaud and his Theatre of Pain I was intrigued. In this work my thoughts returned to him, especially in the video and the performance. The difference is the intention. I do not wish to horrify and cultivate madness, obsessively exposing the grotesque and absurd, but to suggest some inexplicable resolve.

Expressionism, Art Brute, and Minimalism Even though the influence of modernist aesthetics is pervasive in this work there are specific movements within modernism that relate directly in content, process, and presentation. The source material of early expressionists investigation into color becomes subject in the overall work and their deviation from acceptable themes becomes foundational to my underlying theory. Art Brut, like theatre of pain, informs, both in approach and in its evocation of hysterical existential pain. The later abstract expressionists lend a key to both content and process; their obsession with relativity and the atom is refigured through adaptation of synchronous meaning, arising out of spontaneous improvisation. Finally, the formalist presentational approach of the minimalists becomes refigured by charging objects with essential qualities, symbolic assonance, and subjective pathos both autonomous and relational.

10

Bataille and Informe But life cannot be reduced to meaning, Bataille said. There are dimensions be it the dimension of the erotic or the sacred that keeps destroying the unifying impulse of sense. And the way modern society denies that which does not make sense, shows up its rationalist drive at its most grotesque.6 There is a point at which paradox cannot be resolved by synthesis but must stand like the formless in Batailles writing or the abject, the state between subject and object, as similarly sacred as the highest ideals but without sublimation or indemnity, born in consciousness. Steiner and Anthroposophy The basis of artistic creation is not what is, but what might be; not the real, but the possible. Artists create according to the same principles as nature, but they apply them to individual entities, while nature thinks nothing of individual things. She is always building and destroying, because she wants to achieve perfection, not in the individual thing, but in the whole. 7 Anthroposophy is the term Steiner used to name his whole approach to human knowledge: anthropo meaning man, and sophia meaning wisdom.

The Goetheanum: Cosmology and Total Art Rudolf Steiner, a polymath and spiritual teacher of the early 20th century, has profoundly influenced my life and art. Steiners 2nd Goetheanum, one of the first buildings to explore the form potential of reinforced concrete, built after the first Goetheanum burned, testifies to his place in modern art and architecture. In it is realized what Wagner called total art. Artistic performances are carried out in an atmosphere of complete creative spirit. Color, light, sound and form all work upon those who enter. His cosmology is expressed in this building as a formative experience for those who enter its doors. In this thesis work are several collage pieces, which incorporate these cosmological ideas and overlap in essay composite, ideas of form and meditative tools for understanding. They are

11

emblematic of cosmic evolution as well as indicative of a western path of inner development. I began using his cosmological form images as an element in collage several years before coming to FSU and continue to develop this approach. Progressive yet overlapping and interrelated planetary stages of earths cosmological evolution expounded upon in Steiners writings and lectures are represented in these collages. Steiner often lectured using traditional black boards. In my work, the black board is a vehicle and symbol of the transfer of knowledge as well as a tool for deconstruction and expression of the idea as object. My use of blackboards for ephemeral artistic works began with a cardboard schematic from Steiners lecture series on Revelation8 used for a presentation in Roald Nasgaards Art History Class, covering late modern art to the present. I was explaining the connection between Rudolf Steiner and Joseph Beuys.

Interior, Steiners 2nd Goetheanum

12

Beuys and Tarkovsky Among the many artists influenced by Steiner, Joseph Beuys and Andrei Tarkovsky have the most baring on this work and thesis. Through thinking intensely about Beuys relationship to Rudolf Steiner I began to reformulate my own artistic involvement with Anthroposophical art. His attention to the use and meaning of persona parallels my own artistic interests. His deflation of ironical intentions in art also resonates. His recurrent theme: Show your wound is compatible with the present thesis. Both Beuys and Tarkovsky deal with the emotional state of humiliation and sacrificial acts of healing. The connection to filmmaker Andrei Tarkovskys work is through the common investigation of time. As he explained in his book of film theory, Sculpting in Time, cinema's capacity for capturing time was in his view its most important feature.9 Our spiritual intensions also correspond: transcendence. 10 Even at its bleakest, Tarkovsky's universe is suffused with faith and the idea of

IV. Elaboration on Artists Work Journey and Return: The Installation and Environs This is the title given to the entire installation. The Journey is the spiritual journey both inward and outward, through life and on into the unknown. The orientation of the work represents a passage through various types of physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual phenomenon. The experience of the room should act as a ferry or bridge between, and interactively unite these phenomena. 1. The Gates Left Form- 12 X 12 X35, Right Form- 15 X 15 X 45; gas-fired, prospected earthenware, with low-fire slips and glazes; fall 2007- spring 2008. When you enter the room you pass by two sculptural forms, guardians, marking the passage into the spirit realm, like the Masonic pillars, Jacob and

13

Boaz, or two extinguished candles on the alter. In this present stage of my form sculptures they are forms of Lucifer and Ahriman, the two beasts and foundational forms from Revelation, one rising from stone the other from water. These Ahrimanized forms masculine and feminine stand as testimony to our passage through matter, a term taken from Steiner, indicative of spiritual forces which seek their own ascendancy through the control of human consciousness.

The Gates 2. The Wall of Color Passing through the gates, if you turn around to see where you have come from, you encounter a glimpse of the outer world, and a tableau of color and form. wood; 2009. Chymical Wedding 3 panels, 2 4 X 4 each; acrylic, metal, and collaged drawings on paper, on

14

To the east, are three equal size panels with primary colors. The content of top and bottom recall the forms of the gates. The central panel represents a process of unification and balance: the Christ being between Lucifer and Ahriman, willing the balance of thought and feeling, the mercurial union of masculine and feminine, iron and copper.

Chymical Wedding Platonic Solids 4 X 6; acrylic, metal, and collaged paper on wood; 2009. On the west side, the large colored panel reiterates and recontextualizes the Chymical Wedding. Pages of my notebooks, like random thoughts, become

15

reinvested in relation to more recent investigations. Like in a patchwork quilt, they take on a new role, or like a map, which indicates an interrelationship between various landmarks. Colors expand; chaos and order are woven together; forms take on broader meaning: process itself becomes iconic.

Platonic Solids Buddha Mind 28 X 19; acrylic, metal, and collaged paper on wood; 2009. This smaller colored panel does the same thing for religious and spiritual imagery that the larger panel on the same wall does for its image content. It points to the broader context that underlies the rest of the installation, which minimizes to a greater degree, referential imagery.

Buddha Mind 16

3. Sing to Me Now 4 X 8; chalk and black latex paint on wood; 2010. This paraphrase of the beginning of Homers Odyssey, straightforwardly introduces the idea of spiritual journey, as it invokes the feminine spirit of inspiration underlying all poetic and artistic endeavor. Presenting and paraphrasing such a cultural icon indicates several points: first It evokes the specter of Greek culture while modernizing the wording to erase it from the mind at the same moment, assuming that a spirit can be born in a new form; paraphrasing is a form of demeaning or humiliating symbolically the cultural icon, even while idealizing it; a more subtle component locks the fluid hand written text to a barely visible, cool blue grid; finally, being written in chalk, it is indicative of the ephemeral nature of all art, all ideas, all objects, indeed all existence.

Sail, Soil, Soul; Sing to Me Now 17

4. Sail, Soil, Soul 24 X 26; chalk and black latex paint on wood; 2009. This small chalk and clay on black panel, simply ties the physical journey with the spiritual. Like several other works, this was made with scrap materials, otherwise destined for the dump. 5. Color Theory All the works that are specifically concerned with Goethean color theory, for whatever else they may convey, are emblematic of the idea as object. I chose Goethe because Steiner saw Goethe as his predecessor, the Scientist most able to lead humanity to a correct way of perceiving matter, and because he is largely ignored, basically because his way of perceiving was misunderstood. I have chosen his color theory because of its profound but ignored influence on modern art and because it is what Goethe himself considers his most important work. The Symbolic Significance of Color One 4 X 8, two 16 X 19; chalk and latex paint on chalkboard, acrylic, ceramic, and colored pencil on wood; 2009- 2010. This piece centers on Goethes psychology of color. By contrasting the Chalk vs. the painted, more finished parts I am literally and symbolically rehabilitating his work. I hope to draw attention to the intrinsic beauty of Goethes scientific work, though the words themselves have become objectified like stone.

The Symbolic Significance of Color 18

Spectronomic Synchrony

One 4 X 8 chalkboard; seven 8 X 10 acrylic on canvas, eight 1 X 4 prisms (on chalk tray); 2 X 4 black latex paint on wood (centered above blackboard); 2009- 2010. This piece acts as a bridge uniting disparate elements and emerging as aesthetically valid in its own rite. It combines ordered elements with random or improvised elements, related by the contextualization of the other works. This is similar to the way the music and image are interrelated in the video, creating new synchronous elements.

Spectronomic Syncrony Empirical Content/ Western Yin Yang 4 X 8; chalk, and black latex paint on wood; 42 wide black latex on wood circle (centered above 4 X 8 panel); 2009- 2010. Goethe used a similar image to prove that black may be perceived as an active force, and not simply negation expressed in Newtonian color theory. The prisms placed on the tray of the blackboard opposite this one should be used by the viewer/visitor to make his/her own observations. In this way, a functional idea in Goethes color theory experiments becomes a minimalist interactive object, a type of western yin/yang. 19

6. Owning the 7 Pointed Star 29 X 29 chalk, clay, and black latex paint on plastic; 2009. This is basic symbolism. The five-digit clay handprint is symbolic of the human being of the present, struggling with ego consciousness, trying to realize its full potential. The seven-pointed star represents the spiritualized human being of the future, in harmony with the Cosmos. 7. Cosmic Conception 2 X 3; chalk, ceramic, metal, and black latex paint on wood; 2005 & 2009- 2010 In a similar fashion the physically real becomes inversely related to the spiritually symbolic. The death of the logos in human form becomes occasion for cosmic conception and evolutionary change. Owning the Seven Pointed Star; Cosmic Conception

8. Terra Firma: Island of Parched Earth 4 deep X 4 wide circle; unfired clay, wood, and chicken wire; 2009- 2010. This is the island of parched earth, indicative of material process. Dried up and rigid, it remains tied to life through consciousness as a foundational manifestation of spiritual expression and forces.

20

Terra Firma

Dark Crystals 9. Dark Crystals: Lost Plans of a Gone World

4 X 6 X7 area containing shards, 3 form sculptures (1 X 2 X 4, 1 X1 X 2, 16 X 63 X 9), 1 lidded jar; gas and electric fired stoneware, chicken wire, wood, and unfired clay; 2008- 2010. Located near the moorings of the boat to stand in for a dock. I spoke of these earlier as signposts. Like the island of parched earth, it is possible to become stranded here in a lifeless world infused with darkness and controlled by obsessive forms of order and chaos; or they can be noted for their instructive aspect, and left behind.

10. Arrival Various objects installed at the furthest end of the room, visible through the entrance, with text written in chalk on the floor in front of it. Here one is brought face to face with the nature of becoming where all paradox is potentially resolved. It is: That last world, without hope, beyond despair.

21

The Abandoned Boat The Abandoned Boat 4 X 1 X 12; boat, chalk, black latex paint, clay, wood panels, acrylic, musical Instruments, books, snake, photograph, globe, metronome; 2009- 2010. The boat, the vessel of this world, the body of the phenomenal world itself, is moored and abandoned. The silver at the bottom of the boat represents that which is from the past, like moonlight, reflective of the stronger golden light of the sun. The objects in the boat are representative of the present forms of perceiving which also must be abandoned in order to be reborn in us in a new form. This includes the picture of the little girl, symbolic of the physical bodys longing after the spirit as expressed in romantic love, fulfilled finally by the spiritual reunion of the sexes. Even the golden orb of the sun as a model of the future earth is abandoned for the full reality. The humiliation is complete and resolved. Death itself is objectified and held in consciousness by the logos.

22

The Abandoned Boat (detail) 26- 14 X 12; wood, nails, paint; 2009.

The Abandoned Boat (detail) A Ladder to the Sky

This is a spirit ladder; like ladders made in childhood it will not bare the physical weight of a man. It is Jacobs dream ladder. The earth has left its mark on us, traces of which remain on the ladder as we spiritually ascend. It is like a kiva ladder, which will disappear when the process is complete. Reconstructed Tunnel of Light 3 wide X 2 deep circular panel; acrylic and colored pencil on wood; 2009. The sun spirit through the ultimate sacrificial act reunites the earth with the spirit in consciousness. With this object, the artistic illusion is complete. The visitor is left to decide what is essential, what is real.

A Ladder to the Sky; Reconstructed Tunnel of Light 23

The Head of the Corner 47 X 63; video projected on worn blackboard with chalk marks; made with JVC digital camcorder, mini DV tapes, Mac, MacBook, Yamaha PSR 280, various musical instruments, iMovie 09, Garage Band 09, 2007- 2010. It is difficult to come to an understanding of chance because chance is only a shadow image of higher necessities11 This relatively short video represents more than an hour of incorporated footage and over 2 years of artistic progression. I have used technology to create this work, which exceeds my present comprehension. All of this has become part of the project. I am not hiding the flaws but letting them speak. The intensions become blurred and the ideas presented in the blackboards are lost, erased forever. New synchrony and meaning, however, arise out of apparent chaos and chance.

The Head of the Corner

24

To symbolically emphasize the humiliation of the ideas expressed in all of the blackboards and implicit in Goethes Color theory and other scientific works, I have used the processes of abstract expressionism first applied to the blackboard, then to sophisticated technology, to deconstruct or humiliate the idea as object. The ideas have become objectified, ignored, misrepresented, abused, and ultimately divested of intellectual and spiritual content. Last spring Goethes color theory became the subject of one of my black boards, then deconstructed for the concluding segment of this video. Goethe has become a name like a sign on the highway or a tourist attraction defaced with graffiti. Likewise, I have become a talking head with the sound obliterated, blasting away on my trumpet in the only way I feel I have left to be heard, like a Charlie Chaplin without subtitles. Empathetic with the deconstructed object, my humiliation, becomes apparent in the chaotic attempt to reconcile my own artistic failures with Goethes high art and science which has been defaced by history.

The Head of the Corner (detail)

25

Logos Empiricus: April 9th Performance The performance on the night of April 9th was intended to form a unity with the installation. Along with the Video, it introduces the element of time. The primordial sound of creation, like thunder, is heard as the Logos is injected intentionally with full force into the work; it becomes the work. Then historical time emerges with the ticking of the metronome. As man orders time mechanically trying to find order out of chaos his poetic impulses are brought to nothing again and again. For a moment, he stops time. He returns to simpler music. Playing the bowls recalls the atonal beauty of nature, the cradle of our being, the mother. The ego reasserts itself and he tries to play a more complex instrument. Nothing but farts emerge. Something is wrong. The music is obstructed. It is his own corruption that must be removed or resolved and given as testimony before he can return to his music. Even this is not enough. The logos must be acknowledged, must be awakened as with a shout. The man exits the spirit chamber and returns to the world, where he still must strive with only the logos to light his way.

Logos Empiricus (prop) 26

V. Conclusion I have experienced eternity; it is more terrifying than death if experienced with an unprepared consciousness, and more sublime than can be explained rationally when experienced in a state of grace. The possibility of hell is existential and needs no proving. Humiliation is subjectively universal. There is no solace in belief nor disbelief; the problem is intimately personal and cannot be avoided. Love alone is solace- love and real knowledge, living knowledge, knowledge warmed by love. In a lecture on Technology and Art, Steiner says: what you will find in the way of paintings in our Goetheanum building will not be there for their direct effect, as used to be the case with art in the past, but will be there for the soul to encounter, so that the experience resulting from this encounter will be a work of art. This of course involves a metamorphosis12 It is this type of metamorphosis that I mean by rehabilitation and involves an intersection and inner transformation of all manifested forms: of nature, of objects of art, technology, and culture, and the participants with those objects, who, themselves have become objectified or remain stranded between subjectivity and objectivity in an abject state. The artist, who seeks to consciously engage matter with spirit, lifts up what remains in darkness and brings it into light.

27

VI. Notes
1

Rudolf Steiner : The Arts and Their Mission, Chap. 6., New York: Anthroposophic, 1964. 2 Ch'ing-yuan Wei-hsin: Quoted by Masao Abe: "God, Emptiness, and Ethics", Buddhist-Christian Studies, Vol. 3. (1983), pp. 53-60. [p.56]; Heine, Steven. "God, Emptiness, and Ethics" in Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue. Part 1 ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1995. Print. Buddhist-Christian Studies. 3 Freidrich Nietzsche: p.1, Francis Golfing transl, The Birth of Tragedy; And, the Genealogy of Morals. New York: Anchor, 1990. Print. 4 V. Andoratsky: Marx on Hegel, P. 25; Dialectical Materialism, The Theoretical Foundation of Marxism- Leninism. New York: International, 1936. Print. 5 Steiner, Rudolf, and Michael Wilson. The Philosophy of Freedom (the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity); the Basis for a Modern World Conception; Some Results of Introspective Observation following the Methods of Natural Science. Forest Row: Rudolf Steiner, 2001. Print. 6 Joseph Nechvatal: http://old.thing.net/ttreview/septrev.05.html "Thing Reviews Article." The Thing. Web. 21 Apr. 2010. <http://old.thing.net/ttreview/septrev.05.html>. 7 Rudolf Steiner: The Aesthetics of Goethes Worldview. Vienna: New Directions, 1988. Print. 8 Rudolf Steiner: Apocalypse of St. John, New York: Anthroposophic, 1993. Print. 9 Maximilian Le Cain: filmmaker and cinephile living in Cork City, Ireland. Film, Final. "Andrei Tarkovsky." Issue 51, 2009 - Senses of Cinema. Web. 21 Apr. 2010. <http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/tarkovsky.html>. 10 Ibid 11 Rudolf Steiner. (? - I am no longer certain of the source of this quote but list a likely source of a related topic) Chance, Providence and Necessity, GA# 163 by Rudolf Steiner Eight Lectures, Dornach, Aug-Sept 1915 Translated by Marjorie Spock. The Rudolf Steiner Press, 1988/ Print 12 Rudolf Steiner. Arts and Their Mission. New York: Anthroposophic, 1964. Print.

28

VII. Bibliography Andoratsky, V. Dialectical Materialism, The Theoretical Foundation of MarxismLeninism. New York: International, 1936. Print. Film, Final. "Andrei Tarkovsky." Issue 51, 2009 - Senses of Cinema. Web. 21 Apr. 2010. <http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/tarkovsky.html> Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von. Goethe's Color Theory. Arranged and Edited by Rupprecht Matthaei. American Ed. Translated and Edited by Herb Aach. New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971. Print. Heine, Steven. "God, Emptiness, and Ethics" in Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue. Part 1 ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1995. Print. BuddhistChristian Studies. Kocur, Zoya. Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Malden, MA [u.a: Blackwell Publ., 2008. Print. Lacarrire, Jacques. The Gnostics. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1977. Print. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Birth of Tragedy; And, the Genealogy of Morals. New York: Anchor, 1990. Print. Steiner, Rudolf, and Michael Wilson. The Philosophy of Freedom (the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity); the Basis for a Modern World Conception; Some Results of Introspective Observation following the Methods of Natural Science. Forest Row: Rudolf Steiner, 2001. Print. Steiner, Rudolf. Apocalypse of St. John. Hudson, New York: Anthroposophic, 1993. Print. Steiner, Rudolf. Arts and Their Mission. New York: Anthroposophic, 1964. Print. Steiner, Rudolf, Dorothy Sophia. Osmond, and Charles Davy. Knowledge of Higher Worlds: How Is It Achieved? Bristol: Rudolf Steiner, 1993. Print. Steiner, Rudolf, Reinhold Friedrich Alfred Hoernl, Winifred Hoernl, and Harry Collison. The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity; a Modern Philosophy of Life Developed by Scientific Methods, New York: Anthroposophic, 1932. Print. Steiner, Rudolf. The Aesthetics of Goethes Worldview. Vienna: New Directions, 1988. Print. Steiner, Rudolf. The Language of Color in the First Goetheanum: A Study of Rudolf ... Dornach: Keller, Walter Verlag, 1987. Print. Steiner, Rudolf, Walter Kugler, and Lawrence Rinder. Knowledge of Higher Worlds: Rudolf Steiner's Blackboard Drawings. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 1997. Print. Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro. Manual of Zen Buddhism. London: Rider, 1983. Print. "Thing Reviews Article." The Thing. Web. 21 Apr. 2010. <http://old.thing.net/ttreview/septrev.05.html>. Tisdall, Caroline. Joseph Beuys. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1979. Print.

29