Title The First Cut; the locus of decision at the limits of subjectivity Type Thesis URL http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/6097/ Date 2006 Citation Bowditch, Isobel (2006) The First Cut; the locus of decision at the limits of subjectivity. PhD thesis, University of the Arts London. Creators Bowditch, Isobel Usage Guidelines Please refer to usage guidelines at http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/policies.html or alternatively contact [email protected]. License: Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives Unless otherwise stated, copyright owned by the author Thesis submitted for PhD (practice–based) examination October 2006 Title: The First Cut; the locus of decision at the limits of subjectivity Author: Isobel Bowditch Number of words: 51,307 (including footnotes, excluding supplements and bibliography) Degree awarding body: University of the Arts, London Abstract This project examines the concept of decision in philosophical writing, in particular the question of whether subjectivity can be said to constitute a ‘locus’ of decision. The writing of Søren Kierkegaard is the main focus of discussion. Giorgio Agamben, Michel Henry and Jacques Derrida also provide important contributions. Although for Kierkegaard ‘all decisiveness is rooted in subjectivity’, subjective agency takes the form of an active surrendering to an external unknown authority (God). Kierkegaard uses the term ‘leap of faith’ to describe the moment of decision where subjective transformation occurs. For Derrida, any decision requires an undecidable leap beyond all reasoning made in preparation for that decision. He extends a reading of faith beyond the theistic by suggesting that Kierkegaard’s unknowable God could also be another name for the ‘structure of subjectivity.’ Giorgio Agamben’s writing on the concept of human life situated at the threshold of categories (socio-political, philosophical, physiological and so on), helps to further the exploration of subjectivity as the ‘locus’ of decision. Michel Henry’s work on The Essence of Manifestation provides a focus for a discussion on the ‘radical subjectivity’ that Kierkegaard proposes as the fulcrum of decision. The research project as a whole maintains a synergy between these philosophical concerns and the form of their explication. The thesis is made up of both written text and DVD documentation of live works. These instances of practice, whose form and mode of presentation were informed by a specific aspect of the research, are integrated into the thesis to constitute ‘chapters’. The practice can and does function independently in other contexts. However, what is presented in this research document constitutes the outcome of my practice-based PhD project and includes both the ‘theoretical’ and ‘practice’ elements. Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction PART ONE Page No Preface 3 Chapter 1: Leap 4 the test of Abraham 4 the movement of faith 7 there must be anguish… 9 …and a secret trembling 11 the moment 15 a place and a time 18 decidere 22 nothing happened 24 Chapter 2: Exception 26 who is sacred? 26 an example 31 dialogue between two philosophers (DVD) 33 Chapter 3: Obedience 35 subditus 35 the calling 38 Chapter 4: Invisible 42 no sign 42 of life 45 Reading Michel Henry (DVD) 46 Conclusion to Part One 47 PART TWO Page No Preface 49 Chapter 5: Passion 53 Juliet 53 Inter et Inter 55 two places at once 58 the actor 62 the role 64 Chapter 6: Metamorphosis 67 the first 70 Chapter 7: Repetition 75 experiment 77 how to begin? 80 Interlude 85 Chapter 8: Anxiety 88 in the wings 88 altered 92 Chapter 9: Crisis 96 krisis 102 Conclusion to Part Two 106 Conclusion 108 Bibliography 113 Supplement 1 120 Transcript of dialogue between two philosophers 122 Photographs 132 Supplement 2 136 Reading Michel Henry Supplement 3 138 Reading/performance: What is radical subjectivity? DVD suite (in sleeve) Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following for their help and support with this project: The University of the Arts for awarding me a study scholarship for three years. Neil Cummings and Howard Caygill, my supervisors, for generously sharing their experience, knowledge and time with me and for their consistent encouragement and enthusiasm. Mark Wilbor for his humour, patience and support throughout. Sarah Wishart for her friendship and invaluable help with proof-reading the thesis. Sarah Colquhoun, Virginia Nimarkoh, Lisa Pember, Lawrence Sullivan, Hana Sakuma, Michael Curran, Vidyajyoti and Andrew Chesher for their friendship and moral support. Linda Large, Alastair Danson, Vasiliki Boutopoulou for saying ‘yes’ without hesitation when asked if they would like to participate in the project. Leo Carey and Liz Ward, from Chelsea library. Introduction At the centre of this project has always been the question: What does it mean to make a decision? In order to approach this general question, it must be broken down into several more specific areas: Who or what is the agent of decision? What is it that occurs in a decision as such or what does decision actually give rise to? At what point can I say that such a thing as a decision takes place, if it takes place at all? The question I am asking is in fact to do with the ‘locus’ of decision. Subjectivity, the ‘I’ who makes the decision, may be said to be such a ‘locus’ but as soon as the investigation begins, subjectivity, as a locatable agency, starts to dissolve. In order to address this problem, I looked at the writings of philosophers who have approached the question of decision from the point of view of subjectivity, that is, not as an attempt to look at objective analysis or in terms of, for example, ‘decision theory’. Instead, the exploration that I carried out is concerned with the connection between thought and subjectively lived experience and the kind of philosophical thinking that takes into account these two, often contradictory, spheres of human existence. My interests in the research question are philosophical, but I am not a philosopher in a conventional sense. The environment that I have worked in over the years has been fine art practice. Although I have been studying philosophy independently for many years, I have no formal qualifications in the subject. This fostered in me a level of uncertainty as to where I could situate myself as a researcher. I wanted to explore the research question philosophically whilst still remaining an artist. The situation of not entirely belonging in one discipline or the other turned out to have intrinsic value in developing the research, not least in keeping me keenly attuned to the notion of threshold that I was trying to explore. Therefore, I decided that it was in the best interests of what I was trying to do to make the most of this in-between status (an artist engaged with philosophical questions or vice-versa?) and to develop a philosophically inspired practice of my own. the practice I am interested in what constitutes the ‘practice’ of philosophy, that is, something which is not only an intellectual activity orientated towards universalising or objectifying aims but which also has emotional, playful or embodied aspects, in brief, an activity where contingency and subjectivity play a role. This aspect is frequently erased in the final product of philosophy, that is, the printed text or the conference paper. What process occurs in the formation of the ‘philosopher’ in his or her professional guise and in the development of the work that is called philosophy? At what point and by whose authority can a person say ‘I am a philosopher’ and what authority does this designation then hold? I wondered whether the practice of the philosopher could be compared to that of the artist and whether there is a way in which each can inform the other. As much as possible, I wanted to avoid making work or indeed writing about philosophy. I was looking for a way that I could do something that might be called philosophical, even if it was not conventionally recognisable as philosophy in the academic or institutional sense. The works that are presented with the thesis are the results of my endeavour towards such a philosophical practice. Practice-based doctoral research in a fine-art context often means that the researcher writes an academic thesis about their area of interest and presents their artworks independently of the thesis. In such an approach, the division between what constitutes theory and what constitutes practice is made clear (at least in terms of presentation and methodology). Although my research was also practice-based, to impose a strict separation between ‘practice’ and ‘theory’ seemed entirely antithetical to my concerns. I felt that the interdisciplinary nature of what I was doing meant, precisely, that I would be working in the space between fine art and philosophy and that my task was to develop a practice which would be situated there. With this in mind, it will be helpful for the purposes of this Introduction, to discuss the different forms of presentation included in this thesis as well as the theoretical sources. In the course of the project, I produced a series of works which aimed to synthesise philosophical ideas with artistic practice in such a way that research question itself was performed, or enacted. Two of these are presented as DVD documents and included as part of the main thesis. These instances of practice function independently from the thesis: they have been and/or will continue to be presented within other contexts. Here, the written thesis itself provides one such contexts through which they can be seen. In terms of the final presentation of this research project, therefore, it is my intention that the DVD’s are seen and interpreted in relation to the written text in the thesis.