A Countercultural Movement: Examining Carolee Schneemann’s Kinetic Theatre Between 1963 and 1970 Sylvie Laura Simonds Department of Art History and Communcation Studies McGill University, Montreal April 2013 A thesis submitted to McGill University in Partial Fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Sylvie Laura Simonds 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ......................................................................................................iii List of Illustrations ....................................................................................................iii Résumé ......................................................................................................................iii Abstract......................................................................................................................v Acknowledgments......................................................................................................vi Introduction..............................................................................................................1 Examining the Counterculture .......................................................................4 Historicizing Kinetic Theatre.........................................................................11 Farewell to the 60s and Kinetic Theatre ........................................................15 Literature Review on Schneemann ................................................................18 Overview........................................................................................................23 Chapter 1: A window for Stan Brakhage...............................................................28 A window of opportunity...............................................................................37 Examining the use of the Muse .....................................................................45 Allegorical Value: Examining nature, the muse and the body in Dog Star Man and Eye/Body.....................................................................52 Re-thinking the use of the muse in Eye/Body ...............................................60 A Portrait for Brakhage: painting as an expanded medium ...........................67 Conclusion: “From Schneemann” a riddle unsolved.....................................73 Chapter 2: Cold War Psychiatry and the Recovery of Sensation in Carolee Schneemann’s kinetic theatre...................................................................77 Schneemann’s Paranoid Aesthetics................................................................85 A Laboratory for the Senses...........................................................................91 Wake me up If I’m still dreaming... ...............................................................101 Seeing the 1960s Hypnagogically..................................................................107 It's all in the mind! .........................................................................................110 Sensory Expansion.........................................................................................119 Conclusion .....................................................................................................124 Chapter 3: More than Free Love: reconsidering the role of antipsychiatry in Carolee Schneemann’s kinetic theatre...............................................................127 R. D. Laing and the Politics of Experience....................................................136 Meat Joy and the Politics of the Self .............................................................140 More than Free Love: Reconsidering Meat, Eros, and Madness in Meat Joy.........................................................................................................149 i Performing the Revolution: Utopian Dreams in Paradise Now.....................153 Conclusion .....................................................................................................160 Chapter 4: Reading between the lines: examining sexism and violence in the Dialectics of Liberation............................................................................................162 Inclusion and Exclusion.................................................................................166 It might not be obvious: addressing the invisibility of violence and conflict in the New Left .................................................................................178 The rise of militancy in the New Left............................................................189 Conclusion .....................................................................................................199 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................201 ii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: Carolee Schneemann, Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions, 1962-1963, photographic still, taken by Erró ............................................................ Figure 2: Carolee Schneemann, Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions, 1962-1963, Detail of Schneemann with two snakes.................................................. Figure 3: Carolee Schneemann, Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions, 1962-1963, Inside Colorado House, photographic still, taken by Erró..................... Figure 4: Frans Holbein, The Ambassadors, 1533. Oil on canvas. National Gallery, London. ...................................................................................................................... Figure 5: Beer, Jack. Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald, November 24, 1963.................................................................................................... Figure 6: Stan Brakhage, Dog Star Man, 1962-1964, 16mm, black & white, color, silent, 78 min......................................................................................... Figure 7: Carolee Schneemann, Windows to Brakhage, 1962-1963 ......................... Figure 8: Stan Brakhage, Dog Star Man, film still ................................................... Figure 9: Stan Brakhage, Dog Star Man, film still ................................................... Figure 10: Stan Brakhage, Dog Star Man, film still ................................................. Figure 11: Stan Brakhage, Dog Star Man, film still ................................................. Figure 12: Stan Brakhage, Dog Star Man, film still.................................................. Figure 13: Stan Brakhage, Dog Star Man, film still.................................................. Figure 14: Carolee Schneemann, Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions, 1962-1963, Image with Ying and Yang, photographic still, taken by Erró................ Figure 15: Carolee Schneemann, Eye/Body 36 Transformative Actions, 1962-1963 .................................................................................................................. Figure 16: Carolee Schneemann, Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions, 1962-1963, Image with mink furs, photographic still taken by Erró......................... iii Figure 17: Carolee Schneemann, Fur Wheel, 1962, construction on lamp shade base: fur, tin cans, mirrors, glass, oil paint, mounted on turning wheel, (19x19x11.5”)................................................................................................. Figure 18: Stan Brakhage, Dog Star Man, detail from part II .................................. Figure 19: Carolee Schneemann, Eye/Body detail with Ice Box, 1962 (27x40x18”) Figure 20: Life Magazine, January 25, 1963, cover .................................................. Figure 21: Carolee Schneemann, Viet Flakes, 1965-66 ............................................ Figure 22: Carolee Schneemann, Viet Flakes, 1965-66............................................. Figure 23: Carolee Schneemann, Snows, 1967.......................................................... Figure 24: Carolee Schneemann, Snows, 1967.......................................................... Figure 25: Carolee Schneemann, Snows, 1967.......................................................... Figure 26:Carolee Schneemann, Snows, 1967........................................................... Figure 28: Stan Brakhage, 23rd Psalm Branch, 1966-78.......................................... Figure 29: Stan Brakhage, 23rd Psalm Branch, 1966-78 ......................................... Figure 30: Stan Brakhage, 23rd Psalm Branch, 1966-78 ......................................... Figure 31: Stan Brakhage, 23rd Psalm Branch, 1966-78 ......................................... Figure 32: Dr. Donald O. Hebb’s experiment constructed at McGill University in Montreal, to study the effects of prolonged sensory deprivation. ............................. Figure 33: Carolee Schneemann, Illinois Central, 1968 ........................................... Figure 34: Carolee Schneemann, Illinois Central, 1968............................................ Figure 35: Carolee Schneemann, Illinois Central, 1968 ........................................... Figure 36: Carolee Schneemann, Meat Joy, 1964 .................................................... Figure 37: Carolee Schneemann, Meat Joy, 1964 .................................................... Figure 38: Carolee Schneemann, Meat Joy, 1964 .................................................... iv Figure 39: Living Theatre, Paradise Now, 1968 ...................................................... Figure 40: Living Theatre, Paradise Now, 1968