Heidegger’s hesitations: Mise-en-scenes of unreliable narration. Nicholas H. Waddell ORCHID ID No: 0000-0002-5766-1032 Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy February, 2020. VCA Art Faculty of Fine Arts and Music The University of Melbourne 1 Abstract Modern Australian identity is impacted by historically romanticised images and narratives of the occident which in post-colonial Australia remain oddly familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. This research explores certain romanticised narratives as the question of their reliability becomes the catalyst for a collision between art, lived- experience, identity and representation. ‘Heidegger’s hesitations: Mise-en-scenes of unreliable narration’ examines this concern primarily through interrogating the effects of this collision. As a figure of substantial philosophical consequence whose ideas have significantly informed art theory, Heidegger and his Greek sojourn is pursued through the retracing as being experientially-unanalysed. If ‘retracing’ is the ‘way of the image’, what if anything, can be specifically recuperated from retracing philosopher Martin Heidegger’s 1962 sojourn across Greece that might inform art today? In the European Spring of 2017, the project of retracing followed Heidegger’s journey to Greece uncovering a series of points which provided the basis for a critique of his concept of alétheia. Tourism emerged as a practical method for exploring certain narratives. Metaphorically, tourism provided a useful image for the exploration of ideas. For the tourist, a dislocation occurs that characterises an un-belonging. It is this sense of un-belonging that is apparent in the many hesitations Heidegger recalls in his narrative account ‘Sojourns: The journey to Greece’. Both Heidegger’s sojourn and the retracing of it, are explored as mise en scenes of unreliable narration where the abjectness of each romanticisation is formed in the perceived authority of narrative imagery, asking why is it that certain narratives hold weight and are carried whilst others are jettisoned, dropped or simply forgotten? 2 Declaration: This is to certify that: (i) the thesis comprises only my original work towards the Doctor of philosophy except where indicated, (ii) due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used, (iii) the thesis is 45,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices. Nicholas H. Waddell 3 Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the support and assistance of the following organisations and individuals who have contributed significantly to this project of retracing. The University of Melbourne, VCA Art, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. Dr. Bernhard Sachs for his principle supervision, whose insight, generous advice and close reading of the issues at hand have contributed considerably to the direction of the research from the outset. Edward Colless, whose guidance and supervision revealed paths that were otherwise obscured. Prof Barb Bolt, whose contribution to artistic research specifically through the application of Heideggarian concepts has helped make sense of the material. Dr. Simone Slee, for her enthusiastic encouragement and cohort leadership. The Greek Government, specifically the Greek Ministry of Culture for granting special permissions regarding privileged access to and photographic access of several UNESCO heritage listed sites. Australian Archaeological Institute of Athens (A.A.I.A), Dr. Stavros Paspalas Acting Director, Dr. Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory Executive Officer, University of Sydney - thank you for your kind support and advice. Acropolis Museum Athens, Archaeological Museum Delos, Archaeological Museum Nemea (University of California, Berkeley), Archaeological Museum Delphi, Archaeological Museum Milos, Katakouzenos House Museum Athens (Sophia Peloponnissiou- Vassilacos – Director). The Museum of Australian Democracy, Eureka Centre, Ballarat. Sovereign Hill Ballarat. Ballarat Gold Museum, Australian Federal MP Maria Vamvakinou, Dr. John Panteleimon Manoussakis, Dr. Sarah Midford (LaTrobe University), Janet Brown, Hartmut Veit, Dean Colls, Lu Skacej, Stephen Ames, Patrick Epstein, Felicity Teague, Bruce Waddell, Jennifer Waddell, Marie Muggivan. Thank you all for your conversations, labour, support and assistance. Finally, to my dearest Georgie, thank you for your patience, kindness, abundant generosity, and endless cups of tea without which this project might never have come into being. 4 Table of contents Abstract 2 Declaration 3 Acknowledgements. 4 List of images 6 Introduction: 9 Section one. Romanticisation and unreliability. 17 -Part one: Romanticising Heidegger, his hesitations and poetry in Greece. 18 -Part two: Romanticising Australia. 35 -Part three: Unreliable narration as a critique of Alétheia. 48 Section two. Retracing. 52 -Part one: Physical retracing. 54 -Part two: Memory and materiality. 65 -Part three: Immaterial retracing. 69 Section three. Retracing the image of Heidegger in Greece. 72 -Echo: Bakery Hill speech Asclepius 73 -Discourse on underground spaces: Walking backwards at Nemea 78 -Hotel Zeus: The persistence of images 90 -Slippage: A reverse phantasmagoria at Nemea 93 -Doppelgänger: An encounter at the Acropolis 95 -I hesitate because I know and because I don’t know 100 -After Exekias: Dionysus in Ballarat and payable gold 103 -Delos Prop 107 -Athena and Poseidon 111 -Bronze foot: Walking and the sacred way 114 -Milos: Recognition of a fellow traveller in the Catacomb 118 -Shit flute: Ocarina in b# 121 -The stall: Recalling an ancient scene 123 Conclusion. 126 Appendix A: Exhibition works from Mise-en-scenes of unreliable narration. 129 Appendix B: Selected work from the candidature period. 139 Bibliography. 150 5 List of images Fig 1: Still of Heidegger in Greece 1962. 22 Fig 2: Jo, Montseny, Catalunya, Univers. Antonio Tàpies. 1974 66 Fig 3: Circling during a hesitation, 2017 73 Fig 4: Walking backwards at Nemea, 2017. 78 Fig 5: Hotel Zeus, 2017. 90 Fig 6: After Tàpies, 2016. 92 Fig 7: Slippage, 2017. 93 Fig 8: Doppelgänger, 2017. 95 Fig 9: I hesitate because I know and because I don’t know, 2017. (Detail) 100 Fig 10: I hesitate because I know and because I don’t know, 2017. (Detail) 100 Fig 11: I hesitate because I know and because I don’t know, 2017. (Detail) 100 Fig 12: I hesitate because I know and because I don’t know, 2017. (Detail) 101 Fig 13: After Exekias, 2017. 103 Fig 14: Delos Prop, 2017. 107 Fig 15: Athena and Poseidon i, 2017. (Artist book) 111 Fig 16: Athena and Poseidon ii, 2017. (Artist book) 113 Fig 17: Bronze foot, 2019. (Installation view) 114 Fig 18: Detail of inscription on the ‘Stoa’ of the Athenians, 2017. 115 Fig 19: Detail of Delphi museum display, 2017. 117 Fig 20: Mevel Mussou, 1874, 2017. (Artist book) 118 Fig 21: Shit flute, 2018. 121 Fig 22: The Stall, 2017. (Artist book) 123 Fig 23: Walking as retracing, 2017. 125 Fig 24: Echo, 2017. 130 Fig 25: Walking backwards at Nemea, 2017. 130 Fig 26: Hotel Zeus, 2017. 131 Fig 27: Slippage, 2017. 131 Fig 28: Doppelgänger, 2017. 132 Fig 29: I hesitate because I know and because I don’t know, 2017. (Detail) 133 Fig 30: I hesitate because I know and because I don’t know, 2017. (Detail) 133 Fig 31: I hesitate because I know and because I don’t know, 2017. (Detail) 133 Fig 32: Delos Prop, 2017. 134 Fig 33: After Exekias, 2017. 135 Fig 34: Athena and Poseidon i, 2017. (Artist book) 136 Fig 35: Athena and Poseidon ii, 2017. (Artist book) 136 Fig 36: Mevel Mussou, 1874, 2017. (Artist book) 137 6 Fig 37: Shit flute, 2018. 137 Fig 38: The Stall, 2017. (Artist book) 138 Fig 39: Bronze foot, 2019. (Installation view) 138 Fig 40: Permit from the Greek Ministry of Culture 25.01.2017 139 Fig 41: Studio installation. 2016. 140 Fig 42: After Tàpies, 2016. 140 Fig 43: Felt Icon, 2016. 141 Fig 44: Hessian icon, 2017. 142 Fig 45: Studio view. Dec, 2016. 143 Fig 46: Wherever you stand, there you are, 2016. 144 Fig 47: Katecho, 2017. 145 Fig 48: Studio assemblage 146 Fig 49: Hessian screen, 2016. 147 Fig 50: Hessian screen, 2016 147 Fig 51: Flown gods (Series mock-up) 148 Fig 52: Flown gods (Series mock-up) 148 Fig 53: Flown gods (Series mock-up) 148 Fig 54: “Self-portrait in black and blue” 2018. 149 7 ‘The history of mankind is in the instant between two strides taken by a traveller’1 -Franz Kafka 1 Kafka, Franz. Parables and Paradoxes in German and English, Schocken Books, New York, 1961. 8 Introduction Whilst travelling in Greece in the European winter of 2015, I pondered as others before me have done, thoughts regarding various extrusions through time. Some of these extrusions remained physically perceptible, still existing in a material sense as ancient artefacts, stone ruins or as significant geographically historical sites. However, I sensed other extrusions as well which had immaterial dimensions characterised by thought and narrative imagery which have over time become attached to various places, peoples and objects. On reflection, amid the materiality of Greek artefacts and stone architectural ruins was the notion that certain narratives unceasingly shape ‘images’ of ‘worlds’ that no longer exist. Imagery and narrative carry through time as immaterial extrusions that hold a certain authority yet change from generation to generation as they are returned to time and again in uncertain ways, coming to us through historical, mythological, personal and religious means. I was struck by the slippage between physical objects and the object of narrative and by the notion that the authority of the ancient world was so distant, yet simultaneously so close and felt in the presence of experience. As an Australian artist raised in the Victorian country town of Ballarat I was motivated to delve into how narratives intersect directly in experience and how as an Australian, European narratives seem familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I came to the realisation that the distance of time and place is abstracted through the authority of these narrative extrusions.