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Circles and repetitions: habit and the unconscious T~ d l ’TF. ' A. V 1TÏF iJ‘i—' /"**>?' Hi Hu 3T? j.i. 1. : * ' ' 4 :i Ruth I V Blue Slade School o f Fine Art, University College, London PhD in Fine Art ProQuest Number: U643842 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest U643842 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Acknowledgements I would like to express thanks to my generous and inspiring PhD supervisors. Enormous thanks to Lis Rhodes, whose perceptive, detailed criticism has kept me on my toes over the last five years and brought about vital changes in my art work and my thinking. Thanks to Norman Bryson for his always lively and prompt responses to my writing and to Andrew Renton for his support and encouragement throughout my research. This thesis would not have been completed or perhaps even begun without the practical support and many hours spent talking through its philosophical and conceptual intentions, its structure and tone, with Christian Kerslake. Thanks too to Uriel Orlow and Aura Satz for taking the time to read and comment, always patiently and challengingly, on my writing during each step of the way. Secondary support for my art work has been provided primarily by Stuart Brisley, a distant relative of Geldo, and John Hilliard, who faithfully kept the PhD practical seminars alive and kicking. Thanks to Patrick ffrench, and to Michael Newman for his support and advice during the early stages of my writing and his generous offers of occasions for public speech. Very special thanks also to Andrew Hodgkiss. And to Janet and Tim. And to all the other people I don’t have the space here to mention. Abstract This thesis explores habit - learned, repetitious, ritualised activity; the most commonplace, everyday manifestation of spirals of repetition in human life. During the modem period the emergence of self-conscious subjectivity has often been in tension with the tendency towards explanation of phenomena in terms of natural mechanism and automatism, and the notion of habit has emerged again and again as a possible modulation between these poles. Paradoxically the humble notion of habit serves as a stage on which the ancient themes of unconscious repetition and fate are replayed in a modem context. This thesis attempts to unify the philosophical, psychological, and aesthetic manifestations of habit while also expanding the concept, and thinking of it in terms of a route or device to achieve different states of ‘metamorphic’ awareness. My practical work, mostly video, also deals with the theme of habit and repetition and its modulation between the realms of consciousness and unconsciousness. Often my video pieces are scripted from dreams, and attempt to reflect something of the nature of the ‘sleepwalker;’ a figure caught somewhere between life and death, control and autonomy, determination and indeterminacy. An understanding of habit, I feel, can provide a means of articulating something of the in- between state of such compelling, impenetrable sleepwalking figures, which have emerged again and again throughout histoiy in a variety of different art forms and practices, from literature to film, but also importantly, in everyday life. Running throughout the thesis is the voice of iris ceido, the pin in the side of the thesis, who 1 have worked with, not unproblematically, throughout. 1 will include her personal experiences, in the form of letters, emails and diaiy entries, in which she responds to what she thinks I might be getting at in each chapter of the thesis. Although her words are often provocative, they are always relevant and she brings back a quality of indeterminacy and resistance to the things I am attempting to illuminate. Contents Introduction the art of distraction 19 Chapter 1 practice makes perfect: the harmony of habit the puppet and the god practice makes perfect habit and adaptability Bergson: habit and memory 45 Chapter 2 sleepwalkers: habit, hypnosis and 'suggestion' lean make you ... don’t know habit, hypnosis, artificial sleep suggestions Clarice: the puppet master comes clean 73 Chapter 3 practice will not make perfect: the sun will not rise tomorrow on habit and doubt one ordinary morning in March will the sun rise tomorrow? one ordinary morning in January habitual doubt habit and return 104 Chapter 4 spiritual exercises and metamorphosis habit therapy the led life that (what?) shape am I the art of changing shape 147 C o d d Robert Bresson: puppet master arrêt demandé 'But I don’t want to die ’ ‘Of course you do’ the ‘empty ’ vessel: Bresson’s models a cinema of confinement escape by pin Appendices (verbal purgatory) 171 Appendix 1 fifteen months of unconscious mental activity 198 Appendix 2 dancing Queens 210 Bibliography alphabetical Illustrations to title pages Cover Pavonia Paradoxum (video still) Introduction Madonna (video still) Chapter 1 Madonna (video stills) Chapter 2 Old Masters (video still) Chapter 3 Madonna (video still) Chapter 4 Madonna (video still) Appendix 1 Spinner (video still) Appendix 2 Red Leg (photograph) Video cassettes Madonna, 1 mins, / Gloomy Sunday, 4 mins, / Pavonia Paradoxum, 13 mins, 2001 In tro d u ctio n the art of distraction The art of distraction I go to put my hat on in order to scratch my foot. I have a problem in the relationship between movement and intent. There are too many choices, too many variables, so that it becomes necessary to distract myself in order for some other part of me to decide what to do. In order to walk forwards, I drop small balls of paper which I keep in my pocket, in front of my feet; the act of throwing them and seeing them land, sets my legs in motion and tells me which way to walk. This is especially valuable when I make my paper trail from shreds of official letters, bank statements, bills, doctor and hospital appointments, as finally now I find a use for them and can respond to them in some way — make them serve some purpose. This is different altogether to the way music animates me in dance, because in that case I am controlled, manipulated by something external to myself, somebody else's creation in relation to which I am no more than a puppet. I recognise in the puppet a certain freedom from the confusion of autonomy, but rather than die in order to find such certainty, or be incarcerated in an institution as I was for so long, I now seek a way of being entirely of my own making, I must be absolutely in control of who I am, what I do and how I do it. So I train myself, become habitual, and through this I achieve pure control, within my habitual state, although I remain frustratingly prone to more random laws than those that make themselves obviously known, I know I have reduced, in part, the possibility of their controlling me. In this way, in my life I find and keep the balance between chance and control; I create a set of conditions within which I allow the now limited variables to remain random. The problem comes when I 'wake up' from my habitual state and find the variables have taken 'me' over, and my structure of control has been shattered. Where did the idea for the paper ball throwing come from? Don't know. In these painful waking moments I begin to question if it was every really 'me' that set up the conditions in the first place, they seem so unfamiliar in the new light of day. And if it is a 'me' that I find now so strangely, what part of the me is it that takes over when I lose myself in my habits? Don't know. So I create a new structure and begin the process over again. In this way I find myself continually evolving. It is not a smooth evolution, it stumbles and jerks, is prone to contingencies and failures, exhaustions and excitements. It involves the continual re-balancing between what I am and what I become in the moments when I no longer am. Often the only way out of the states I find myself in is to stick the pin in my foot. Yet, no matter how much I try to make this action a part of my habit, it never happens. Still, I keep my pin with me at all times. In previous, more disastrous situations, it has been a method of escape. And now as it is time for me to leave. You will see how lacking in what they call 'grace' I have become. You will see as I start to cut my usual erratic path across the room how I lurch forwards for the door in order to raise myself from my seat. When standing, I think of sitting in order to remain standing. So that I can pick up my bag, I think of blowing my nose. To put on my gloves, I think of coughing 3 times. In order to move forwards, I think of falling asleep. To think of all that is mysterious in this room, I finally leave the room.^ Does Geldo have ‘grace?’ Grace is important to Geldo, though she thinks she’s lost it, and the notion will come, especially in Chapters I and 2 of the thesis, to have an intimate connection to key aspects of my conception of habit.