{"id":5098,"date":"2007-11-26T13:42:29","date_gmt":"2007-11-26T16:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.idanca.net\/2007\/11\/26\/a-consequencia-de-infinitos-fins\/"},"modified":"2008-09-10T21:06:56","modified_gmt":"2008-09-11T00:06:56","slug":"a-consequencia-de-infinitos-fins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idanca.net\/a-consequencia-de-infinitos-fins\/","title":{"rendered":"A conseq\u00fc\u00eancia de infinitos fins | The consequence of infinite endings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Palestra-performance apresentada no Festival Panorama de Dan\u00e7a 2007. Tradu\u00e7\u00e3o de Gustavo Cir\u00edaco.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n


\nH\u00e1 10 anos atr\u00e1s, eu decidi ir visitar um amigo meu em Munique. Ele estava organizando um show de New Music como parte de uma grande exibi\u00e7\u00e3o do expressionista abstrato Ellsworth Kelly na Haus der Kunst. Naquela \u00e9poca eu n\u00e3o sabia muito sobre New Music. Ent\u00e3o, eu estava feliz em ter a oportunidade de ver o show. Era no maior espa\u00e7o do museu e era um programa com mais ou menos 6 pe\u00e7as diferentes. No fim da 5\u00aa, meu amigo se endere\u00e7ou \u00e0 plat\u00e9ia para dizer que a pr\u00f3xima m\u00fasica ia durar 45 minutos e que ficaria muito silencioso e que as pessoas tinham liberdade de sair se quisessem, mas que fizessem o favor de permanecer em sil\u00eancio quanto fosse poss\u00edvel. Era um quarteto de cordas de Morton Feldman. Quando eles come\u00e7aram, algo que eu nunca tinha vivido antes aconteceu. O espa\u00e7o ficou em sil\u00eancio, n\u00e3o como parte de um consenso cultural que consiste no respeito ao evento ao vivo que \u00e9 oferecido, mas sim com cada espectador ativamente em sil\u00eancio, porque os m\u00fasicos estavam tocando em um volume t\u00e3o baixo que n\u00e3o bastava ficar em sil\u00eancio, voc\u00ea tinha que se esfor\u00e7ar para poder ouvir e escutar a m\u00fasica que estava saindo daqueles instrumentos.<\/span><\/p>\n

Essa m\u00fasica estava, de fato, localizada no limiar do sil\u00eancio, no limite de sua pr\u00f3pria morte. Ela navegava em uma esp\u00e9cie de repeti\u00e7\u00e3o ilus\u00f3ria com uma tens\u00e3o impl\u00edcita entre perman\u00eancia e desaparecimento. Esta m\u00fasica estava projetando sons no tempo. E enquanto algumas pessoas estavam competindo com os m\u00fasicos ao sa\u00edrem, eu e alguns outros est\u00e1vamos tendo uma experi\u00eancia de verdadeira beleza. Parecia como se a m\u00fasica nunca fosse terminar, mas ao mesmo tempo estivesse apenas preocupada em chegar ao fim durante a pe\u00e7a inteira.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alguns anos depois dessa experi\u00eancia, eu vim a conhecer a id\u00e9ia de Sublime e eu imediatamente a relacionei com aquela experi\u00eancia na Haus der Kunst.<\/span><\/p>\n

Os te\u00f3ricos concordam em colocar o Sublime, n\u00e3o no \u00e2mbito de uma an\u00e1lise da produ\u00e7\u00e3o, mas antes do ponto de vista da recep\u00e7\u00e3o. O Sublime \u00e9 uma experi\u00eancia, uma sensa\u00e7\u00e3o de que surge em contato com certas obras de arte, mas tamb\u00e9m em contato com a natureza selvagem avassaladora.<\/span><\/p>\n

Manteve artistas e fil\u00f3sofos ocupados desde a antiguidade e viveu, naturalmente, uma grande evolu\u00e7\u00e3o atrav\u00e9s dos tempos. No entanto, a caracter\u00edstica mais confi\u00e1vel \u00e9 aquela de uma sensa\u00e7\u00e3o misturada. \u00c9 uma mistura de desconforto, expresso no mais alto grau de terror, e de prazer, capaz de se intensificar at\u00e9 o deleite. \u00c9 uma sensa\u00e7\u00e3o onde duas for\u00e7as antag\u00f4nicas parecem convergir em um relance, abrindo um mundo de ambival\u00eancias. Ambival\u00eancias entre iman\u00eancia e transcend\u00eancia, ambival\u00eancias entre as mais altas experi\u00eancias espirituais e as mais seculares preocupa\u00e7\u00f5es, ambival\u00eancias entre o radical an\u00fancio insens\u00edvel de nossa morte e o doce consolo de uma ou outra reden\u00e7\u00e3o. O fil\u00f3sofo e pensador pol\u00edtico do s\u00e9culo XVII, Edmund Burke, define o Sublime como a terceira emo\u00e7\u00e3o humana. H\u00e1 medo e h\u00e1 deleite e quando estes dois se juntam, n\u00f3s temos o Sublime. N\u00e3o h\u00e1 representa\u00e7\u00e3o do Sublime, nem podemos alcan\u00e7\u00e1-lo com certeza. Apenas aquele que o sente, sabe que ele (ou ela) o est\u00e1 sentindo.<\/span><\/p>\n

O aspecto formal das pe\u00e7as de arte que lidam com o sublime \u00e9 sempre absoluto, reduzido a um \u00fanico ponto de aten\u00e7\u00e3o que envolve o espectador de uma maneira autorit\u00e1ria. Isso, junto com a urg\u00eancia para que uma experi\u00eancia aconte\u00e7a, acaba levando o espectador a uma vertigem que o leva em dire\u00e7\u00e3o a uma dissolu\u00e7\u00e3o no vazio. N\u00f3s ficamos presos em um jogo complexo entre ser absorvido ou tomado por uma obra de arte, e manter a nossa dist\u00e2ncia em rela\u00e7\u00e3o a ela, um combate entre resistir por meio de nossa dist\u00e2ncia cr\u00edtica e dar entrada em uma fascina\u00e7\u00e3o ainda mais invasora. Essa experi\u00eancia \u00e9 t\u00e3o tem\u00edvel quanto desejada porque ela envolve ao mesmo tempo uma separa\u00e7\u00e3o do nosso estado atual de ser, de nossos estados preferidos, da vida que conhecemos, da natureza, mas envolve tamb\u00e9m a dissolu\u00e7\u00e3o no infinito e na unidade. Ela envolve ao mesmo tempo um processo de lamento e um processo de libera\u00e7\u00e3o. Um mecanismo que frequentemente deixa o observador com nada al\u00e9m, a n\u00e3o ser uma doce tristeza ou uma melancolia improdutiva.<\/span><\/p>\n

Quando Petrarca escalou o monte Ventoux em 1336, foi o nascimento de uma nova sensibilidade. Pela primeira vez, algu\u00e9m descreve uma natureza puramente opressiva como um lugar a ser contemplado pela sua beleza e poder. O ambiente hostil, cheio de perigos, que o homem tinha a miss\u00e3o de conquistar, torna-se para Petrarca o lugar para se buscar s\u00edmbolos, um lugar para se refletir e desejar. Este representa o primeiro passo para o surgimento do que seria chamado de esp\u00edrito rom\u00e2ntico. Essa sensibilidade acessada em seu m\u00e1ximo na arte com as pinturas de Caspar David Friedrich, onde n\u00f3s vemos a natureza retratada para al\u00e9m da verdade emp\u00edrica, um lugar onde Deus parece manifestar seu poder moribundo atrav\u00e9s de uma beleza sombria e terrificante. Uma ou duas figuras solit\u00e1rias retratadas de costas que pareciam ter parado a sua caminhada por um momento. Elas permaneciam ali, em silenciosa contempla\u00e7\u00e3o, absorvidas pelo cen\u00e1rio. A composi\u00e7\u00e3o dessas imagens \u00e9 constru\u00edda de tal forma que elas funcionam como filtros para o espectador ser absorvido para o interior das pinturas. Elas servem como guias para apreender a representa\u00e7\u00e3o dessa paisagem de morte. A dist\u00e2ncia entre n\u00f3s, que estamos vendo a pintura, e aqueles que est\u00e3o posicionados dentro da paisagem, contemplando, \u00e9 incerta. Eles est\u00e3o apenas nos ajudando a olhar a paisagem? Ou somos n\u00f3s que vemos ali em p\u00e9, solit\u00e1rios nesses ambientes desolados? A nossa rela\u00e7\u00e3o com a realidade da pintura torna-se incerta, inst\u00e1vel. \u00c9 empatia o que sentimos por estes personagens um tanto an\u00f4nimos? Ou j\u00e1 estamos em p\u00e9 ali, nessa paisagem?<\/span><\/p>\n

O historiador de arte Robert Rosenblum parece nos dar uma resposta quando ele fala sobre o trabalho de Mark Rothko: “N\u00f3s pr\u00f3prios somos o monge diante do mar, em p\u00e9 em sil\u00eancio e contemplativos diante dessas enormes e insond\u00e1veis pinturas como se estiv\u00e9ssemos olhando para o p\u00f4r do sol ou para uma noite enluarada.”<\/span><\/p>\n

A experi\u00eancia \u00e9 assim; at\u00e9 certa medida, compar\u00e1vel \u00e0 experi\u00eancia da contempla\u00e7\u00e3o da natureza. O pr\u00f3prio Rothko disse que suas pinturas n\u00e3o eram meros objetos, mas sim “lugares”. Isso significa, de certo modo, que n\u00f3s n\u00e3o estamos olhando para essas obras de arte, mas que estamos entrando nelas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c9 naturalmente arriscado comparar experi\u00eancias na natureza e experi\u00eancias com a arte, porque no final das contas, uma obra de arte est\u00e1 sempre propositalmente estabelecendo uma comunica\u00e7\u00e3o e consequentemente usa signos e m\u00eddias. Enquanto que a arte precisa de uma justifica\u00e7\u00e3o ontol\u00f3gica dada pelo receptor, a natureza simplesmente \u00e9 e n\u00e3o existe atrav\u00e9s de sua recep\u00e7\u00e3o. Mas a coisa importante aqui \u00e9 que ali ocorre uma experi\u00eancia f\u00edsica similar ao perceber estas pe\u00e7as de arte e ao perceber a natureza.<\/span><\/p>\n

N\u00f3s vemos aqui algu\u00e9m fazendo a experi\u00eancia do sublime. Algu\u00e9m, como Rosenblum o coloca, sendo o monge diante do mar <\/em>enquanto olha a pintura O monge diante do mar, 1745. E ent\u00e3o, por sua vez, algu\u00e9m olhando algu\u00e9m olhando O monge diante do mar e comentando a situa\u00e7\u00e3o.<\/span><\/p>\n

E gostaria de apontar para um pequeno fen\u00f4meno que \u00e9 repetitivamente usado em artes baseadas no tempo (performance, m\u00fasica e cinema). Eu gostaria de us\u00e1-lo como manifesta\u00e7\u00e3o do Sublime na cultura de hoje com as possibilidades da imagem em movimento e a partilha consensual de tempo entre aquele que percebe e uma pe\u00e7a de arte ou um performer. As pinturas de Friedrich e de Rothko s\u00e3o majestosas. Elas se imp\u00f5em ao observador. Mas a tela vazia e o palco vazio est\u00e3o, a princ\u00edpio…vazios. Esperando serem preenchidos pelo tempo. As artes que t\u00eam um desenvolvimento no tempo t\u00eam bem uma outra estrat\u00e9gia e totalmente outras possibilidades. Atrav\u00e9s da fic\u00e7\u00e3o ou da mera presen\u00e7a, elas podem preparar, manipular o observador ao alternar imagens, cortando, esticando ou parando a nossa percep\u00e7\u00e3o temporal.<\/span><\/p>\n

O que eu quero descrever aqui \u00e9 o que eu chamo o fen\u00f4meno da desapari\u00e7\u00e3o<\/em>: um movimento de desaparecimento…e sil\u00eancio. Este movimento pode assumir in\u00fameras formas: um fade out<\/em> lento da luz no palco ou na tela, o desaparecimento gradual de uma forma do muito grande para o muito pequeno, at\u00e9 se tornar algo al\u00e9m de nossa percep\u00e7\u00e3o, um progresso extensivo em dire\u00e7\u00e3o \u00e0 imobilidade…E tudo que aconteceu antes \u00e9 esquecido por conta daquele \u00fanico movimento. E o sil\u00eancio que se segue quebra qualquer ambival\u00eancia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Decisivo<\/span><\/p>\n

Pesado<\/span><\/p>\n

Infinito<\/span><\/p>\n

No filme Heaven (2002)<\/em> do diretor alem\u00e3o Tom Tyckwer, n\u00f3s seguimos um homem e uma mulher em fuga. Essa fuga da viol\u00eancia do estado n\u00e3o \u00e9 uma fuga em dire\u00e7\u00e3o \u00e0 vida em conjunto, \u00e9 uma fuga em dire\u00e7\u00e3o \u00e0 morte em conjunto e, literalmente, uma ascens\u00e3o ao c\u00e9u. Muito cedo eles ficam sabendo que n\u00e3o haver\u00e1 nenhuma escapat\u00f3ria em vida. E quando eles acabam rodeados pela pol\u00edcia, eles conseguem subir em um helic\u00f3ptero e levantar v\u00f4o. Mas n\u00e3o \u00e9 para poder voar para um outro pa\u00eds onde eles possam ser livres para viver felizes juntos. N\u00f3s vemos o helic\u00f3ptero voar verticalmente do ch\u00e3o. E ficar cada vez mais alto, mais alto. At\u00e9 ele se tornar s\u00f3 um pontinho preto no c\u00e9u. Um pontinho preto que por sua vez torna-se cada vez menor. At\u00e9 um momento em que ele se perde no infinito do c\u00e9u azul. N\u00f3s pensamos que n\u00f3s ainda estamos ouvindo o barulho do motor. E ent\u00e3o: sil\u00eancio.<\/span><\/p>\n

Parece que toda a arquitetura do filme foi feita para nos preparar para aquele momento. Um momento onde n\u00f3s n\u00e3o mais seguimos as aventuras de dois her\u00f3is, mas somos trazidos de volta \u00e0 nossa realidade.<\/span><\/p>\n

Os her\u00f3is se foram.<\/span><\/p>\n

N\u00f3s permanecemos.<\/span><\/p>\n

Impotentes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eu gostaria de dizer que os trabalhos onde aquele tipo de fen\u00f4meno vem acontecer constituem na realidade uma longa prepara\u00e7\u00e3o para o espectador perceber esses momentos em sua plena extens\u00e3o. Esses trabalhos s\u00e3o, em geral, narrativas onde n\u00f3s seguimos as aventuras de um indiv\u00edduo ou um grupo de pessoas. N\u00f3s nos apegamos a eles e ao seu destino. N\u00f3s desenvolvemos empatia por eles. Mas quando o movimento de desaparecimento come\u00e7a acontecer, n\u00f3s ficamos absorvidos em uma vertigem que quebra com todos os mecanismos institu\u00eddos pela fic\u00e7\u00e3o que est\u00e1vamos seguindo. N\u00f3s reconhecemos algo que nos atravessa. N\u00f3s experimentamos ali uma vers\u00e3o doce idealizada de nosso pr\u00f3prio fim. Isso j\u00e1 n\u00e3o \u00e9 mais fic\u00e7\u00e3o. A experi\u00eancia se torna direta. N\u00f3s estamos inteiramente \u00e0 sua merc\u00ea.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nesse sentido, a cena que cristaliza todo o filme Nostalghia<\/em> do diretor russo Andrej Tarkovski, \u00e9 um exemplo muito bom. O filme inteiro \u00e9 um longo fim. O fim de um homem que n\u00e3o \u00e9 capaz de se adaptar a um novo ambiente e que anseia pelo seu passado e o lugar desse passado, a R\u00fassia. Na \u00faltima cena filmada em uma \u00fanica tomada, n\u00f3s vemos este homem participando de um jogo simb\u00f3lico que o leva \u00e0 sua morte. O seu objetivo \u00e9 carregar uma vela acesa de um lado para o outro em uma instala\u00e7\u00e3o de banhos termais vazia. Ele anda com grande cuidado, protegendo a chama fr\u00e1gil o melhor que ele pode. A cada vez que a chama se apaga com o vento, ele tem que come\u00e7ar tudo de novo. N\u00f3s ouvimos a sua respira\u00e7\u00e3o se tornar cada vez mais dif\u00edcil e fica claro para n\u00f3s que esta ser\u00e1 a sua \u00faltima fa\u00e7anha. Essa a\u00e7\u00e3o \u00e9 t\u00e3o simples, t\u00e3o compreens\u00edvel, delicada e, portanto, perigosa e ao mesmo tempo filmada com tanto cuidado, que n\u00f3s realmente nos esquecemos que estamos assistindo um filme. \u00c9 como se fosse acontecer ali, na nossa frente, enquanto assistimos a uma performance. E ent\u00e3o em um dado momento, por conta da chama ou porque ele precisa descansar, a personagem quebra com a regra: ela d\u00e1 um sinal para o cameraman<\/em> que est\u00e1 acompanhando os seus passos. E a c\u00e2mera de fato p\u00e1ra o seu deslocamento lateral por um momento. A fronteira entre a personagem moribunda e o ator que est\u00e1 fazendo o seu papel se desintegra imediatamente. E n\u00f3s que testemunhamos isso, somos de repente realmente levados de volta \u00e0 consci\u00eancia de que aquilo n\u00e3o era nenhuma realidade. E quando, ap\u00f3s um curto momento, eles continuam, n\u00f3s n\u00e3o temos nenhuma outra urg\u00eancia a n\u00e3o ser seguir a personagem moribunda de novo, nenhuma urg\u00eancia outra a n\u00e3o ser voltar para dentro da ilus\u00e3o de onde n\u00f3s fomos expulsos por um instante, nenhuma outra urg\u00eancia a n\u00e3o ser mergulhar na tela novamente.<\/span><\/p>\n

A ambival\u00eancia permanece no momento seguinte. N\u00f3s estamos aqui, de agora em diante sozinhos. O \u00faltimo acorde do quarteto de cordas esvaeceu e os m\u00fasicos est\u00e3o guardando os seus instrumentos. A m\u00e3o da core\u00f3grafa e bailarina Paz Rojo se movendo no ar em sua \u00faltima pe\u00e7a, Basic Dance<\/em>, encontrou a sua \u00faltima mobilidade no ch\u00e3o. A coisa que acompanhamos, pela qual desenvolvemos um certo sentimento, uma certa empatia, agora se foi. Perdida no infinito. Preservada no reino da transcend\u00eancia. E a tristeza que sentimos pode ser que seja por n\u00e3o termos sido capazes de segui-la. O lamento pode ser por estarmos ainda aqui. Incapazes da eleva\u00e7\u00e3o da qual n\u00f3s experimentamos apenas um vislumbre. O trabalho apenas nos absorveu por um curto momento no seu interior. Mas ele iria nos rejeitar t\u00e3o rapidamente quanto nos chupou para dentro. A melancolia que n\u00f3s sentimos \u00e9 porque n\u00e3o fomos capazes de permanecer dentro dele, aquela de n\u00e3o termos conseguido ajudar o carregador da chama, aquela de n\u00e3o termos sido capazes de nos pendurarmos no helic\u00f3ptero para ir para o c\u00e9u junto com os amantes. N\u00f3s estamos aqui, grudados mais do que nunca ao ch\u00e3o, paralisados entre uma presen\u00e7a ampliada no momento e a impossibilidade de transcend\u00eancia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eu descrevi o fen\u00f4meno do desvanecimento ou desaparecimento nas artes contempor\u00e2neas baseadas no tempo como um mecanismo cambiante de uma fic\u00e7\u00e3o fora daquele que percebe em dire\u00e7\u00e3o \u00e0 pr\u00f3pria realidade ontol\u00f3gica dessa mesma pessoa. Este mecanismo mant\u00e9m uma boa parcela de uma estrat\u00e9gia de autoridade manipuladora sobre aquele observador. A obra consegue mant\u00ea-lo sob o seu poder e influenci\u00e1-lo de acordo com sua vontade.<\/span><\/p>\n

Isso nos traz de volta ao pr\u00f3prio nascimento da id\u00e9ia de sublime. De fato, o Sublime nasceu de uma tradi\u00e7\u00e3o que n\u00e3o est\u00e1 interessada em arte, mas sim na arte da comunica\u00e7\u00e3o, do convencimento, da ret\u00f3rica. Com o Tratado do Sublime<\/em>, o grego Longinus (213-273), membro da escola neo-plat\u00f4nica, descreve como um orador deve construir o seu discurso para chegar ao “momento sublime”, onde ele fascinaria toda uma audi\u00eancia com suas palavras, at\u00e9 o momento de excel\u00eancia no discurso, um momento de eternidade e verdade inerente ao discurso em si, independentemente de l\u00f3gica ou de outra verdade. Um momento de pura autoridade para com o seu p\u00fablico.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sim, no inicio, o Sublime n\u00e3o lidava com imagens, mas com palavras de uma pessoa se endere\u00e7ando a um grupo de pessoas. N\u00e3o lidava com tristeza, ou beleza ou melancolia, mas com autoridade.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ent\u00e3o, essa \u00e9 na verdade uma pergunta interessante a se fazer. Estamos aqui nos colocando bem no meio dessa tradi\u00e7\u00e3o? Eu falando com voc\u00eas e voc\u00eas me deixando falar?<\/span><\/p>\n

Obrigado pela aten\u00e7\u00e3o.<\/span><\/p>\n

A co-production of PLATEAUX, new positions in international performing arts and Gasthuis Amsterdam. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Presented in the context of the “performing lectures” of UNFRIENDLY TAKEOVER.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The space is divided in two parts. The lecture space and the performance space.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The lecture space is divided in three: a slide projecting area, a pictures and video projecting screen and the speaking area, where I am seated at a small desk.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The performance space is lit throughout the lecture.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I start seated at a small desk.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

10 years ago, I decided to go to visit a friend of mine in Munich. He was organizing a new music concert as part of a big exhibition of the abstract expressionist Ellsworth Kelly in the Haus der Kunst. At that time I didn’t know much about New Music. So I was happy to have the opportunity to join the concert. It was in the biggest space of the Museum and it was a programme of about 6 different pieces. At the end of the fitfth one, my friend addressed the assembly to tell them that the next piece would last for 45 minutes and that it would be very silent and that people were free to leave as they wished but that they would be kind to remain as silent as possible. It was a string quartet of Morton Feldman. When they started something that I had never experienced before happened. The space got silent not as part of the cultural consensus that consist in a respect of the live event that is offered, but each spectator actively silent, because the musicians were playing in such a low volume that it was not enough to remain silent, you had to do it actively in order to hear and to listen to the music that was coming out of these instruments.<\/span><\/p>\n

This music was indeed located at the verge of silence, at the edge of its own death. It navigated in a sort of illusory repetition with an implicit tension between permanence and disappearance. This music was projecting sounds into time. And as some people were competing in silence with the musicians while leaving. Me and a few others we were making the experience of true beauty. It was as if it would never end but at the same time it was only busy ending, throughout the piece.<\/span><\/p>\n

I stand up and go towards the slide projecting area. I start a first slide. It shows a photographic portrait of a young man, the polish artist Roman Opalka. In the second slide, it is the same man, but a little older. At the end of this slide show (30 slides), Opalka is an old man. I will perform this action a few times throughout the lecture. Dividing the amount of projected slides so that the last slide, where Opalka has reached an old age, corresponds with the end of the performance.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Facing the screen as a kind of mirror I give a lot of time in between the transitions. Each time Opalka is looking at me. Each time I am looking at Opalka.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Action performed with the first 7 slides.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A few years after that experience I got to know the idea of the Sublime and I immediately did relate it to that experience in the Haus der Kunst.<\/span><\/p>\n

Theorists agree to place the Sublime not in the range of a production analysis, but from the point of view of the reception. The Sublime is an experience, a feeling that arises with the contact with certain works of art, but also in contact with wild overwhelming nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

It has held artists and philosophers busy ever since antiquity and has, of course, lived a great deal of evolution throughout the ages. However the most reliable characteristic is that of a mixed feeling. It is a compound of unease, expressed in the highest degree of terror, and joy, capable of intensifying to delight. It is a feeling where two antagonistic forces seem to come together in a glimpse opening a world of ambivalences. Ambivalences between immanence and transcendence, ambivalences between highest spiritual experiences and very secular preoccupations, ambivalences between the radical insensitive announce of our death and the sweet consolation of one or the other redemption. The XVIII century political thinker and philospher Edmund Burke defines the Sublime as the third human emotion. There is fear and there is delight and when these two come together, we have the Sublime. There is no representation of the Sublime, nor can we grasp it with certitude. And only the one, who feels it, knows that he (or she) feels it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The formal aspect of the art pieces that deal with the sublime is always absolute, reduced to a single point of attention that embraces the viewer in an authoritarian way. This, with the urge for an experience to take place that leads the viewer towards a vertigo that brings him towards a resolution into the void. We get caught in a complex game between getting absorbed or merging with an art piece, and keeping our distance towards it, a combat between resisting by the means of our critical distance, and entering in an ever invading fascination. This experience is as fearful as it is wishful because it involves at the same time a separation from our actual state of being, from our loved ones, from life as we know it, from nature but it involves also the resolution into infinity and unity. It involves at the same time a process of mourning and a process of liberation. A mechanism that often leaves the perceiver with nothing but sweet sadness or unproductive melancholy.
\nA picture of Friedrich appears on screen.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I turn my seat towards it and watch the picture for a small moment, seated. People are now seeing the Friedrich picture “through” me. I stay there for a moment and turn back.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When Petrarca climbs the mount Ventoux in 1336, it is the birth of a new sensibility. For the first time someone describes sheer overwhelming nature as a place to contemplate for its beauty and power. The hostile environment full of dangers which man had the mission to conquer becomes for Petrarca a place to look for symbols, a place for reflecting and longing. This represents the first step for the upcoming of what would be called the romantic spirit. This sensibility accessed to its full power in art with the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich where we see nature depicted as a place beyond empiric truth, a place where god seems to manifest his dying power through a dark and terrifying beauty. One or two lonely figures depicted from the back seem to have stopped their walk for a moment. They remain there, in silent contemplation, absorbed by the scenery. The compositions of these pictures is constructed in such a way, that these figures serve as filters for the viewer to be absorbed inside the paintings. They serve as guides to apprehend the representation of this landscape of death. The distance between us, who are watching the picture, and them who are placed inside the landscape, contemplating is uncertain. Are they barely helping us to look at the landscape? Or is it us that we see standing, lonely in these desolated environments? Our relationship with the reality of the painting becomes unsure, unstable. Is it empathy that we feel for these rather anonymous characters? Or are we already standing there, in this landscape?
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A picture of Rothko appears on the screen. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I turn my seat towards it and watch the picture for a small moment, seated. People are now seeing the Rothko picture “through” me. I stay there for a moment and turn back.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The art historian Robert Rosenblum seems to give us an answer when he talks about the work of Mark Rothko: “We ourselves are the monk before the sea, standing silently and contemplatively before these huge and soundless pictures as if we were looking at a sunset or a moonlight night.”<\/span><\/p>\n

This experience is thus; to a certain extent, comparable to the experience of the contemplation of nature. Rothko himself stated that his paintings were no mere objects but “places”. This means, in a way, that we are not looking at these art pieces, but that we are entering into them.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is of course risky to compare experiences in nature and experiences with art, because after all, an art piece is always purposely establishing a communication and uses signs and Medias consequently. While art needs an ontological justification given by the receiver, nature simply is and doesn’t exist by the means of its reception. But the important thing here is that there occurs a similar physical experience by perceiving these art pieces and by perceiving nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

A picture showing me watching the original of “The monk before the sea, Friedrich” in the Nationalgalerie in Berlin appears on screen.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I turn my seat towards it and watch the picture for a small moment, seated. People are now seeing the Rothko picture “through” me. I start to talk from that position, commenting the picture.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

We see here someone making the experience of the sublime. Someone, as Rosenblum puts it, being the monk before the sea<\/em> while watching the picture The monk before the sea, 1745. And then, in turn, someone watching someone watching The monk before the sea and commenting the situation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back to frontal.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I would like to point out a small phenomenon that is repeatedly used in time based arts (performance, music, cinema). I would like to use it as an example for a manifestation of the Sublime in the culture of today with the possibilities of the moving image and the consensual sharing of time between the perceiver and an art piece or a performer. The pictures of Friedrich and Rothko are majestic. They impose themselves to the viewer. But the empty screen and the empty stage are, at first… empty. Waiting to be filled through time. The arts that have a development in time have quite another strategy and whole other possibilities. Through fiction or mere presence, they can prepare, manipulate the viewer by alternating images, by cutting, stretching or stopping our time awareness.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I want to describe here is what I call the phenomenon of disappearance<\/em> : a movement that slowly, irremediably heads towards its end. A movement of disappearance… and silence. This movement can take numerous forms: a slow fading out of light on a stage or a screen, the gradual disappearance of a form from very big to very small, until it becomes beyond our perception, an extensive progress towards immobility… And everything that happened before is forgotten for the means of that one movement. And the silence that follows breaks all ambivalences<\/span><\/p>\n

Decisive<\/span><\/p>\n

Heavy<\/span><\/p>\n

Infinite<\/span><\/p>\n

I stand up and go towards the slide projecting area. Opalka action performed with 7 more slides.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Back to my seat<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In the movie Heaven (2002) <\/em>from the german director Tom Tyckwer we follow a man and a woman escaping. This escape from the violence of the state is not an escape towards a life together, it is an escape towards death together and, literally, a rise to heaven. Very early they know that there will be no escape in life. And when they get surrounded by the police, they manage to climb in a helicopter and to raise it into the air. But it is not in order to fly to another country where they could be free to live happily together. We see the helicopter flying vertically from the ground. And getting higher and higher and higher. And being smaller and smaller. Until it becomes no more than a mere black dot in the blue sky. A black dot that in turn becomes smaller and smaller. Until a point were it looses itself in the infinity of the sky. We think that we still perceive the sound of the motor. And then silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

I turn my seat towards the screen and project the excerpt of “Heaven”. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Back to frontal talking position.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

It seems that the whole architecture of the movie was meant to prepare us for that moment. A moment where we don’t follow the adventures of the two heroes anymore, but we are finally brought back to our own reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

The heroes are gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

We remain.<\/span><\/p>\n

Powerless.<\/span><\/p>\n

I would like to state that the works where that kind of phenomenon comes to happen constitute actually a long preparation for the viewer to perceive these moments to their full extension. These works are very often narratives where we follow the adventures of an individual or a group of people. We get attached to them and to their fate. We develop empathy for them. But when the movement of disappearance comes to start, we get absorbed in a vertigo that breaks with all the mechanisms instituted by the fiction that we follow. Something passes through us that we recognize. We experience there an idealized sweet version of our own ending. This is no fiction anymore. The experience becomes direct. We are entirely at its mercy.<\/span><\/p>\n

To that extent, the one scene that crystallizes the whole movie Nostalghia<\/em> of the Russian director Andrej Tarkovsky, is a very good example. The whole movie is a slow ending. The ending of a man who is incapable to adapt to a new environment and who is longing for his past and the place of this past, Russia. In this last scene filmed in one shot, we see this man playing a symbolic game that leads him to his death. His goal is to carry a lit candle from one end to the other end of an empty thermal baths installation. He walks with great care, protecting the fragile flame the best he can. Each time the flame gets extinguished by the wind, he has to start over from the beginning. We hear the breath of the man getting more and more difficult and it is clear to us that this is going to be his last achievement. This action is so simple, so understandable, delicate and therefore dangerous, and at the same time filmed with such a care, that we truly forget that we are watching a movie. It is as if it would happen here, in front of us, watching a performance. And then at a certain moment, out of care for the flame or because he needs to rest, the character breaks the rule: he gives a sign to the cameraman who is accompanying his steps. And the camera indeed stops its lateral traveling for a moment. The frontier between the dying character and the actor who is playing him disintegrates immediately. And we who witness this, we are suddenly truly brought back to the awareness, that this was no reality. And when, after a short moment, they go on, we have no other urge, than following the dying character again, no other urge than getting back inside the illusion from where we got expelled for a glimpse, no other urge than diving into the screen again.<\/span><\/p>\n

I stand up and go towards the slide projecting area. Opalka action performed until the last one.<\/em>
\nThe ambivalence lies in the moment after. We are here, from now on alone. The last tune of the string quartet has vanished away and the musicians are packing their instruments. The hand of the choreographer and dancer Paz Rojo moving into the air in her in last piece, Basic Dance <\/em>has found her last immobility on the ground. The thing that we have followed, for which we had produced a certain feeling, a certain empathy is now gone. Lost in infinity. Preserved in the kingdom of transcendence. And the sadness that we feel might be that we haven’t been able to follow it. The mourning might be that we are still here. Incapable of the elevation from which we just experienced a glimpse. The work just has absorbed us for a short moment inside itself. But it was to reject us as quickly as it sucked us in. The melancholy that we feel is that we have not been able to stay inside it, that of not having helped the carrier of the flame, that of not being able to hang to the helicopter in order to go to heaven together with the lovers. We are here, glued more than ever into the ground, paralyzed between an increased presence in the moment and the impossibility of transcendence.<\/span><\/p>\n

I stand up and go towards the performing area. Excerpt of Basic Dance, from Paz Rojo.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Back to talking position.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I have described the phenomenon of vanishing or disappearing in the contemporary time based arts as a shifting mechanism from a fiction outside the perceiver to the own ontological reality of this perceiver. This mechanism holds a great deal of a manipulative strategy of authority on that perceiver. The art piece manages to hold him in his power and to influence him at its will.<\/span><\/p>\n

This brings us back to the very birth of the idea of the Sublime. Indeed, the Sublime was born in a tradition that is not interested in art, but in the art of communication, of convincing, the rhetorics. With the Treaty of the Sublime<\/em> the Greek Longinus (213-273), member of the neo-platonic school describes how an orator is due to construct his speech in order to arrive to a “sublime moment”, where he would hold the entire assembly to his words, to a moment of excellence in the discourse, a moment of eternity and truth inherent in the discourse itself independently to logic or one or the other truth. A moment of pure authority on his audience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, at first, the Sublime did not deal with images but with the words of one person addressing a group of people. It didn’t deal with sadness, or beauty or melancholy, but with authority.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it is actually an interesting question to ask. Are we tonight placing ourselves right in the middle of this tradition? Me talking to you and you letting me talk?<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you for your attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

End.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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