Download PDF of This Text

(! (\) 'G)\ b e s s A\ F) \, S 'S' E S FS -S-\ *s r.l\i) .S\ \) \, (\) G SSs s -N.sN * l-.N e ;-) \n \ \ u-& S G \' ^. \r \) e\r ss A U s \ ?\ FF; h. GiJ) \, Gr : SS *s A\ \,'- \ oc)\) CL sscJ \, \) +\)S/ NIS \) *s \ \ra e \) fi .r S \) I\) %r c\ A\ \) Ngr \) A. i) % \, s-ES \J Fl-\. --.- eafrE I\Lv->\ f\) \) --- \ :!s' e ^\ - E L- VRA Fr \) \rv! A % .s= \--l s \) I I\) I]\r \ PHri F) Gi) I€F', - P a ri \ I\) \rc!A v \J \ t-i vJ aA.. A\ \--------l \) J \) ss$ \, \,- S=L -'\ c\) N ^: \) \,A.\J \ \, o :F?F \ .t- \ I\) \) Gr) f\) \) I,idC $\) -NA | - o v'\v \) \) c\) !coi -l A \) G *.SR \I !\ ET S S-J t\l *q *q a) .- b-vvxF S S :n*Q Rs s :!:($ A e E \U \ s \, .k*S F - AJ s.F if \J n Y v \ sca \ quoted 1. JacquesLacan in Knowledge of El Greco's astigmatism,which is qpically acquiredwell Jean-LouisBaudry, "The after an apprcciationfor the vertigi- Apparatus:Metapsychological nous compositions of his canvases,presents the viewer with an insoluble puzzle that becomes permanently Approachesto the lmpression entwined with the viewer's perception and judgment of the work. We are told that El Greco never over- of Realityin Cinema,"Narra- came the defect his tive, Apparatus,ldeology, of vision, and this certainly must be true, astigmatism being a permanent spherical dis- ed. PhilipRosen (New York: tortion of the cornea or lens that develops as the eyeballs grow. Instead, we are told, El Greco took over his ColumbiaUniversity Press, astigmatism and used it, saw with it rather than in spite of it, and somehow this has implications for the pe- 1986), p. 317. "vision." culiar signatureof his If this indeedwas the case,we must regard his vision separatelyfrom the generalized vision of mannerism. His astigmatic eyes ar€ not iust a metonym for stylistic affect, or a symbol of personalaffliction, like August Strindberg'sbleeding hands; they are a specializedmachine. The factuality of El Greco's astigmatism and its (supposed)affirmation in the ocular distortions of his paintings, re- "sees" "projects" defineshis affliction as a literal apparatus,one that both and from the place ofthe viewing subject. By virtue of its deformity, the apparatusceases to be a neutral term in the genesis of the image and cannot be taken for granted. For all its factuality, however, we cannot actually find this apparatus,much less see with it and describe its function, and a materialist course of reduction will not lead us to it as it would to the paint and support of the canvas. Nor can we infer it formally; we can only imagine it through what we fudge to be its affects, a iudgment which is likely to be presumptuousif not utterly groundless:i.e., the sphericaldistortion of the painted image follows from the spherical distortion of the eye. Thus the factuality of the apparatusyields no material evidence or certainty of its function. And interpretation fares little better. Do we dare assume that the ectoplasmic clouds and garments depicted in TheAgony in the Gard,enappear qualitatively similar because that is how El Greco literally perceived them, or that his bad eyesight forced him to substitute his un- derstanding of fabrics for direct experience of distant and unfocusable atmospherics?We expect th e appa,- ratus to be evident in some form, but everyhing it might constitute as visual meaning is cast into doubt. Everything,that is, exceptthat a distinctlyother viewing subiect- perhapsreligiously ecstatic and visually - impaired has been proposedin place ofour own accustomedpoint ofview. We can, however, stand in front of the painting and look at it for awhile. In so doing we may occupy tne position - of the distortional apparatus albeit, with our own correctional one. The usual condition of trans- parency' "know": the assumption of the other's eyesby our eyes, is interrupted by what we that the painting is, in a sense,not for our eyes.We are presented with a kind ofontological doubling: one point ofview occu- pied by two constituting subjects. Because we cannot see through this interruption, we move around it and enter a circuit ofpursuit and reflection vis-i-vis the grounds ofthe subject - our own vertiginous swirl - which often seemslike a processof splitting.Pursuing the astigmaticapparatus, we addresswhat the imagc shows us and realize we cannot iudge it formally, as that presumes we know what the apparatus does and can distinguish what it does from the formal traits of mannerism in general, which, it is safe to say,were not produced by an epidemic of defective eyeballs.When we eliminate this presumption and treat what rhe image shows us as phenomena, we realize we will eventually only affirm our own correctional apparatus and discover nothing new. The circuit becomes a knot of analysisand perception. Whenever we try to tether it to a securestarting point, which can be neither material nor phenomenal,we keep returning to the droning restatement of a historical fact: El Crecohad an astigmatism.. The fact insists upon the actuality of the apparatus and the materiality of its effects - which seemsquite reasonable - but it appearswe can neither locate them nor trace a causal link between them without first translating the whole analysisinto a kind ofnarrative. Of course' some of tlese problems and confusions result from applying the terms of the cinematographic apparatus to a somewhat inhospitable example, and allowing those terms to exercise their reductive ten- dencies. But, to the extentthat the choiceof the exampleand the terms is problematic,it is alsodeliberate. The confusions that arise from the overemphasison the apparatus are by no means exclusive to this example. They part are ofa generalconfusion found in the opticalmodel ofthe subiect,which has for at leasta half-millenium derived its senseby transposing material for subjective terms, the eye for the self, and of which the cinematographicapparatus is but one recent technicalelaboration. WhenJacques Lacan writes, "the - subiectis an apparatus" a statementseized upon by film theoristJean-LouisBaudry - it is implicit that the apparatusin question is fundamentally optical in character and that the subject is on some level re- ducible to it.' However, the confusionthat ariseswhen a reduction to the material apparatusand a reduc- "apparatus" tion to the ofperception are intermingledhas specialrelevance to the subiectofthis text (the 123 What Cyansaid to Magentaabout yellow 2. The term "structuralfilm" is video-projection work of Diana Thater) becauseit recalls the segment of experimental film history, known usuallyattributed to P. Adams "structural generally in America as fiIm," which is to a significant degree reappraisedin Thater's work.' Sitney, whose book Visionary "defective" Film (OxfordUniversity Press, Considering Thater's employment of a kind of optical apparatusand distorted image, the leap to 1974) includesa chapteron El Greco's astigmatismis not all that great - although it requires rigid distinctions between artistic media to the films of lvlichaelSnow, finds a di- GeorgeLandow, Hollis be loosened or put aside, as will many of the points made in this text. In Thater's work one often Frampton,Paul Sharits, Tony viding or multiplying of the place of the subject, keyed in part on the distortion of recognizable images. One Conrad,Ernie Gehr, Joyce "reductions" materialist and phenomenological of the medium - virtually en- Weiland,and others.The also encounters a collision of "structural" - generalterm also capsulatingtwo dominant and interwoven threads of structural film and video although this collision ulti- appliesto numerousvideo mately leads to collapse.The terms of both analytics (image-as-material and image-as-perception) arc callcd works of the first generation includingthose of Peter into question and held accountableto a broader, more heterogeneousdefinition ofthe site of spectatorship. Campusand DanGraham. In r99r, while taking part in an artist-in-residenceprogram sponsoredby the Claude Monet Founda- Whileit mayimply minimalist, garden at Giverny. These camerastudies, cover- deconstructive,and pheno- tion, Thater videotapeda seriesof solowalks through the menologicalmethods and ing three consecutive seasonsofthe garden, were edited into a feature-length videotape for the two-part it is not intendedto concerns, projection installation, Oo Fifi.: Fioe Dajts in ClauileMonet's Garden (1992). A number of Thater's recurrent connotea direct philosophical "struc- affiliationwith French strategies and themes are succinctly demonstrated in this work and warrant some description. In Part turalism" per se, althougha One,r fl1. video projector is placed diagonally on the floor of the gallery with the image frame covering the numberoF the artistswere panes conversantwith that oppositewall, corner, and adjacentwall, aswell as two exteriorwindows. The window are covered movement. respectively with semi-opaque and fully transparent grey theatrical gels, allowing the room to be partially 3. Oo Fifi Part 7 was installed light and offering, in one window, a clear view of the vegetation outside: a window on at 1301 (gallery)in Santa illuminated by natural N4onica,California as part of the world sharply contrasting that of the projected image. As is often the case, Thater alters the proiected group the video exhibitionlnto image not with an electronic video processor - the weapon of choice for much technophilic video art - but the Lapse, L992. with a screwdriverand someelbow grease.The red, green,and blue projector lensesare taken out ofnor- mal calibration, separating - or multiplying - the image into three otherwise identical monochromes. While thcy illuminatc thc surface of the wall, drawing attention to its physical detail and materiality, the three proximate moving images are themselvestoo far out of registration for the most part to be resolved as "screen," "intentional objects" or scenesby the viewer, and remain derealized.Thus a rift between tlte the thing-in-the-image, and the technical apparatusthat would constitute it is forcibly maintained, shifting the gage of thingness in the work away from the image, back to the site and to the video apparatus itself.

Load more