Wednesday 3 March 2010

Visual Literature

Only through the acuity of a blade had he been able finally to determine the precise dimensions of his loneliness. To plot the abscissa of his despair.

12 comments:

PDAllen said...

Cuts right to the chase.

Marisa Birns said...

Actually, cuts right to the end of the chase.

PDAllen said...

@Marisa lol. Yes it does.

Melissa said...

Wow--powerful image. The red, spilt life, separate, but overlapping with the white, empty, chalk-lined body. It's the overlap that fascinates me. That, and the more "mechanical" shape of the red versus the more organic figure in white (in shape, they switch association). Both show the alienating power of loneliness. Of course, plotting its coordinates this way can be hazardous...And it's a shame if the final word of the silence of despair is spoken by the police...(that's why we're artists and draw our own chalklines).

Sulci Collective said...

Whether it's the Police who speak the words or not, they most definitely chalk the outline.

They give the deceased a lumpy, kids' cartoon colouring in book outline to wrap up a life that has unwrapped itself at the point of a blade.

Yet it is only by passing through into death, that the deceased who is so cut off from reality & happiness, can take any kind of definitive form at all, as outlined by the unbroken line drawing of his boundaries, which have of course been pierced and broken.

Melissa said...

:( I'm somber now. I was playing a bit before. But I have to say, I disagree about the police being those who most definitely chalk the line. The power of the artist is to represent things in order to redefine them. There are different orders of narrative here. Even if this were a "found" story (god, I really hope not), and police really did draw the chalk line, the fact it's being used in a work of art changes it. The chalk lines have not simply been drawn by the police anymore. They are drawn by the author to make a point about police chalk lines in these situations. And the definition of the person's life as this police "cartoon" (I still think it has a flowing, organic line to it, despite things...) changes beyond what it signifies alone in that context. The person's life through death means different things on different layers--and depending on who is telling the story.

If this is a staged scene--If someone did this work of art simply to represent the loneliness (the "he" of the narrative), the meaning and the *literal* drawing of the chalk line changes. If someone were simply dreaming of a character in this situation, then staged and wrote it, the same holds...

Regardless, the last word here as the piece stands is not the police. What would've been tragic is for this to be a real scene, with no one to think or dream of a story...or, rather, realize that a real person existed who had a story. Then the borders of the chalk line would be solid...and silent. And, indeed, the police would've been the ones speaking...

Sulci Collective said...

The reason for bringing the visual content to the text is exactly as you say, it offers many more layers of interpretation. To me the image of the chalkline to mark the body, which i suspect is not really in use anymore with digital photography, is a wonderful image to sum up the human condition. A physical representation of liminality, a border, with an unknown void within. It's like Medieval maps where the cartographers didn't know the interiors of unexplored continents and just filled them with pictures of dragons and other fantastical beasts. Having said that, the chalk outline still has echoes of the kids' colouring in book to me.

I wanted to play with that notion of a border and the emptiness within. Also the hermetic seal of skin (chalk) being pierced to reach the interior which overflows its boundaries.

I just love the multi-faceted seams of such an image. I wrote the text in response to an image I'd always had in the back of my mind.

Your comments seem to open up the issue of their being less room for interpretation of a written text, than a visual image. Therefore is there a chasm between a text and a visual image when you bring the two together? Does their different hermeneutic languages work against one another? I don't know the answer to this.

marc

Melissa said...

That's such a beautiful image, Marc. The chalk line, how you're thinking about it. That's actually how I thought about it in the beginning when I first read and saw this piece--and that's why I was fascinated with the crossing of red blood and white chalk.

An interesting question about interpretation room written text v. image. I don't have an answer. I think I tend to view them both as texts, just with different socially-encoded rules for reading. If they are put together, they are layers of a narrative that can reinforce certain readings or lead against them.
I actually love to watch things play against each other.

A really interesting question here for me is one of author's intention, one that is dead in many quarters. Or, maybe a more basic issue--the need to know who the author is. I didn't know, when I saw this, if you had produced this image (using paint and chalk--or digitally in some way) or had picked it up from another source. I assumed you'd produced it...and I read it as a simulation of a police "crime" scene of a suicide. I also didn't know--if this was simulated--if the "author" was also "supposed" to be the "he" of the narrative. (Which could change the meaning quite a bit...)

The funny thing is that it would matter. But it does in terms of social encoding of meaning. Think about how a story is read if labeled autobiographical or as fictional--or biographical.

But, the most basic thing, I think, for me to say is: you've got a powerful piece here, very evocative (and provocative, as good art is). ;) And I really love the beauty of the images and their meaning. The basic meaning--border, liminality, the human condition--shines through regardless of these other questions!

Maybe you could do some more? :D

Sulci Collective said...

I've commissioned 3 more with a brief - they are for non-linear presentations of pieces of text from the novel. I've had to commission them as I have no graphic ability whatsoever. It'll be interesting to see the alchemy of my vision for it and that the artist brings to it herself.

The problem for the likes of the above piece is I have to find exactly the right image as I can't create it myself. And that's not always possible. I've got a great image in my mind that I now wish I'd used for the front cover of my novel, but I haven't been able even to find component images to photoshop together, so in my head it remains for now... If I ever did manage to render it, I might use it for my business cards!

Melissa said...

Oh, that sucks!! I wonder if an artist would be able to do it (like you've commissioned the others)? If that's possible, it certainly seems worth it. Or maybe you'll somehow stumble upon images to put together at some point? It sounds like an important one to pursue if possible. :) I know what it's not like to find the right image(s), though... Thanks for this exchange! It was fun! And now I am going to bed...haven't been feeling good all day. Ugh!

Dan Holloway said...

This raises so many questions - I agree with Melissa that authorial intention is not a dead question, to start with.

When you use imagery, like this, I find myself asking about every aspect of it - it's deliberate taht it's representing blood and a body outline, for example, but where does the delibrateness end? The body is lying wrong for a wound inflicted there, for example, and the blood pattern is inconsistent with either suicide or murder, so what are we to read into that? The line looks like it was drawn before the blood - why?

My point is that the moment you decide to use an image, you commit yourself to a whole other set of connections and let go of a whole lot of controls. Which is fascinating semiotics!

Real Virtuality said...

I am reminded of "The Chalk Circle", the individual in the centre, pulled at by the claims of ownership, of identity.