Project
Outline in the Seven Stages of Alchemy
In sharing this paper I have decided to utilize a method of
transformation
– that of Alchemy.
The paper is divided into the seven stages of Alchemy.
The history of Alchemy marks the medieval origins of the science
of chemistry.
The stages that occur during the attempt to turn lead into gold.
But more than that, it became a mystical metaphor for magic and
self-transformation.
Each alchemist would interpret the stages for themselves
– defining their own order and choice of stages.
Thus, my mode for presenting this paper is interactive
– allowing you, the reader, to be The Alchemist.
In the following paper, each stage of Alchemy is presented by its
title and colour
– the phrases of transformation are yours to create, to arrange as
you wish.
Cut along dotted line and arrange in order of preference …
INTRODUCTION
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NIGREDO
BLACKNESS – LEAD – PRIMA MATERIA – RAW MATERIAL
“Defining the Self as Medium for Art”
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ALBEDO
WHITE LIGHT – REFINING FIRE
“Self: a Medium of Inherent Transformation / Hannah Wilke”
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VERIDITAS
GREEN – NATURE – REBIRTH
“Metamorphosis of Female Form in Greek Mythology / Francesca
Woodman”
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RUBEDO
REDDENING – MANIFESTATION
“Relationship with Raw Materials / Ana Mendieta”
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CITRINITAS
YELLOW – COAGULATION – BECOMING
“Altered States of Consciousness / Maya Deren”
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GOLD
ARRIVAL
“My Material Culture”
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PEACOCK TAIL
DISPLAY OF ALL COLOURS IN WHITE LIGHT – PRISM
“Return to Pedagogy”
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CONCLUSION
Project
Report – rough draft
I
want to speak about bodies changed into new forms. You, gods, since you are the
ones who alter these, and all other things, inspire my attempt, and spin out a
continuous thread of words, from the world's first origins to my own time.
(Ovid’s Metamorphoses: The
Primal Chaos)
INTRODUCTION
Ramblings on the subject of TRANSFORMATION:
I have a cup of tea – I am transformed
I go for a walk – I am transformed
I drink some wine – I am transformed
I do some sit-ups – I am transformed
I watch a movie – I am transformed
I … this could go on forever ……
Perhaps my transformation is not on any
significant, life-changing scale, but a transformation none-the-less. I am
different than I was before.
Even on the tiniest level of material
structure there is rampant transformation occurring every fraction of a second.
Subatomic particles collide and annihilate each other, living cells replace and
renew. This is Life. This is Spirit. Even inside the molecules of the coldest,
hardest, most motionless rock.
Pre-historic art was born from a transformed
state of human consciousness – from trance, from hallucination. In desire to
communicate their visions, the ancients transformed raw materials into mark
making mediums to create colour and form on cave walls. (find a reference for this?)
Transformation is a continuous, unstoppable
flow of progression – even in decay.
“Yet nothing is ever in a state of permanent immovability.
Everything is always crossing over into something else, decomposing and
recomposing itself beneath the identities truth would like to erect.
This mobility is not the expression of things’ internal nature,
nor is it the result of prior causes that set change in motion. It is a
permanent state of enervation and transformation constantly producing new modes
of interpenetration and cross-mapping that change in turn into something else.” (Mansfield p145)
As an artist I transform in performance. I
transform in order to perform and I am transformed by the act of performance.
My raw materials are those of the Self – the body and psyche. My project is
“RAW-(Material)”.
Project Description:
The Raw Material series is the second stage
of the project:
“The Process and Praxis of Constructing the
Self as Medium”
The project examines the properties of the Self
as Raw Material and explores a practice in which the Self “transforms” within
the act of performance.
My enquiry is two-fold:
“What constitutes the Self as medium for
art?” – and –
“How does the Self transform for and via the
process and praxis of performance?”
RAW-(Material) is a continuation of “The
Performance Anxiety Workshop Experiment”: (http://claireebarratt.wix.com/performanceanxiety)
- the enquiry into creating a practical pedagogy for performance art, which was
the first year stage of my MFA process. After a year of developing a
pedagogical method via a series of synergetic workshops, working with five
different groups of volunteer students, my instinct was to internalize the method, to apply this pedagogy on myself and become
my own student.
I use the Self to go beyond the Self. To
transform. (use Butoh reference here?)
I address the raw materials of Self – the
body and psyche, as well as the raw materials of the environment – of nature,
as mediums with which to create.
My process takes the form of a journal.
A journal employs the idea of a day-to-day
journey. The words Journal and Journey share the same root - the French word
Jour, meaning Day.
Journal is a report of the day. Journey is a day’s
travel.
My journal is a chronology reporting the
explorations, discoveries, transitions and transformations that occur
throughout the journey. These are described and documented in the forms of
text, video, image and sound.
They present a complete cycle of the seasons
and fall into two main categories, which I am calling “Body Studies” and
“Nature Specimens”.
- Body Studies examines the raw material of
the Self in self-exploration. It is a series of studio recordings that catalogue
actions of the body.
- Nature Specimens is an engagement in a kind
of “personal material culture” – the raw materials of nature – specifically the
seasonal aspects that lend themselves to a sense of temporality and an urgency
to capture and interact with them during the time they are present.
The RAW-(Material) series commenced at Somos
Gallery, Berlin – July 2015, with an initiation ritual – “Ground Zero”.
My intention was to strip down everything
superfluous from myself – down to the raw material. Accompanied and supported
by my Transart peers whispering and chanting the word “strip” and shining
intermittent flash lights in the small, dark room, I stripped off my clothing
and shaved my long hair.
Throughout the duration of the project I have
chosen to maintain a neutral appearance within the work – to appear as nude.
Sometimes with literal nakedness and other times in clothing of skin tones. I
will not cut or colour my hair for the complete year – allowing its growth to
serve as a marker of time.
All this is in keeping with the concept of
the Raw Material of the Self.
In sharing this paper I have decided to
utilize a method of transformation – that of Alchemy. The paper is divided into
the seven stages of Alchemy:
Nigredo – blackness, prima material, lead
Albedo – white light, refining fire
Veriditas – green, nature, rebirth
Rubedo – reddening, manifestation
Citrinitas – yellow, coagulation, becoming
Gold – arrival
Peacock Tail – display of all colours, prism
The history of Alchemy marks the medieval origins
of the science of chemistry. The stages that occur during the attempt to turn
lead into gold. But more than that, it became a mystical metaphor for magic and
self-transformation. Carl Jung adopted this metaphor to describe the stages of
psychological individuation. (find reference for
this)
Jung’s alchemical stages reference a
simplified trilogy using Nigredo, Albedo and Citrinitas – adapted by most
alchemists from the original seven.
Each alchemist would interpret the stages for
themselves – defining their own order and choice of stages. Thus, my mode for
presenting this paper is interactive – allowing you, the reader, to be The
Alchemist.
In the following paper, each stage of Alchemy
is presented by its title and colour – the phrases of transformation are yours
to create, to arrange as you wish.
“… the unconscious part of ourselves becomes
the raw material, the prima material, out of which the alchemical gold, the
philosophers stone, which is none other than the enlightened mind, is refined
and revealed.” (Paul Levy)
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NIGREDO
BLACKNESS – LEAD – PRIMA MATERIA – RAW MATERIAL
“Defining the Self as Medium for Art”
On stating that I am exploring the raw
materials of the Self as medium for art in performance, I am subsequently
required to define what constitutes the self in this context. I begin to
examine the overwhelming cacophony of definitions of selfhood.
From the Cartesian Cogito of The
Enlightenment to the nirvana of Buddhist enlightenment. From the autonomous
individual to the self-as-construct. Kant’s Reason, Heidegger’s Being, Freudian
psychoanalysis and Jungian archetypes. The unconscious, the subconscious, the
spiritual and the insane. Personage as demographic identity: generational,
cultural, racial, religious. Sexual orientation and “performing the gender”.
Class, wealth, education. Body types. Cyborgs.
While all these concepts can be brought into
the arena of self in performance, what I am looking for is: What defines the
Self as medium for art?
I find something of what I am seeking in
Lacan’s symbolic order – a “… selfhood (that) can only come to us in
relationship.” (Mansfield p…?) And a quote
from Deleuze and Guatarri that sounds almost like superstring theory: “… the
self is merely the collection point of infinite and random impulses and flows
that over-lap and intercut with one another.” (Mansfield p136) But one simple
statement from Peggy Phelan really hits the nail on the head: “… in performance
the body is metonymic … the performer disappears and becomes something else.”
(p150)
Metonymy – a metaphorical transformation. (A
classic example: The kettle is boiling.) The Self in performance is about what
the self becomes. It is about becoming. It is about Transformation.
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ALBEDO
WHITE LIGHT – REFINING FIRE
“Self: a Medium of Inherent Transformation / Hannah Wilke”
The art of performance requires that the
artist use the medium of the Self.
I argue that, as artistic mediums go, the
self (i.e. human body and psyche) is probably the one most prone to
transformation. In fact, transformations on multiple levels. Being subject to
the everyday whims of being human inevitably affects the self as medium for
performance. Bodily transformations take place moment to moment due to health,
temperature, degrees of hunger or fullness, drugs, caffeine, alcohol, medicines
etc. plus the state of the psyche and the mood of the individual. All these
elements are prone to constant flux, thus transforming the state of the medium
and influencing its quality of performance. Indeed – the Self is arguably the most
unpredictable medium for art that exists!
As well as these moment-to-moment shifts in
state, there is also the long-term progression of the aging of the medium. The
transformations of aging may occur more gradually and subtly – and can really
only become apparent in retrospect. When one views the full span in condensed
form it becomes a complete picture.
In this long-term series of transformations
there is no choice but in how one prepares for and adjusts to them. As Sogyal
Rinoche writes in The Tibetan Book of
Living and Dying: “The realization of impermanence is paradoxically the
only thing we can hold onto, perhaps our only lasting possession.”
An artist whose life’s work exemplifies this
for me quite dramatically is Hannah Wilke. After starting her career as a
sculptor, Wilke’s main subject and medium became that of her own body. As a
feminist provocateur she used her body to challenge the tradition of the male
gaze. Early in her career, due to her youth, beauty and sometimes a playful,
flirtatious nature, she was criticized for what was regarded by some as
frivolity and accused of encouraging the problems about gender roles she was
actually trying to challenge! (… quote here from Amelia
Jones – Body Art/performing the subject …) However, by mid age she
became ill with lymphoma but continued to use her body as the subject of her
work throughout illness, deterioration, aging and dying. On viewing the full
span of her life’s work in context, from beginning to end, it can be seen in
perspective. Having seen the angst of her illness-ridden body, the images of
her young, healthy body take on a new poignancy as part of that life-spectrum.
As for the critics, it seems that somehow she was “redeemed” forgiven. Her
suffering and willingness to share that suffering in continuing to create art
somehow retrospectively made all her work acceptable now – like she had earned
respect due to her suffering. Her young self-image could be viewed with
nostalgia and the pang of something lost – thus validating it. (…Amelia Jones quote…) (Here I could digress into
a host of feminist arguments … however that is not the purpose of this paper
and the subject of Hannah Wilke’s work is to exemplify the transformations of
the medium of Self.)
(include the titles of & talk about these
examples of Wilke’s work in the text above)
IMAGES … HANNAH WILKE …
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VERIDITAS
GREEN – NATURE – REBIRTH
“Metamorphosis of Female Form in Greek Mythology / Francesca
Woodman”
The allure of transformation for me is its
promise of transcendence. As an artist I long to transcend the limitations of
the human self. Paradoxically, as the Self is my medium, it is what I must use
to go beyond the self. In order for this to happen, a metamorphosis must take
place – I must lose myself. Now I am required to create a situation of an
entity larger than myself, to which I can surrender self, to be absorbed by, to
become part of.
For this reason I am drawn to the photography
of Francesca Woodman.
In the essay Francesca Woodman’s Self Images: Transforming Bodies in the Space of
Femininity, writer Jui chi Liu observes: “ The metamorphoses of her body
merging with the environment become a feminist performance surrealistically
conjuring up a subversive world of great emotional force.” (p30)
It is this metamorphosis of the female form
melding with its environment that I identify with in Woodman’s work. To me, it
embodies mythological themes of women being absorbed by nature. In Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, these transformations usually represent a fleeing, an escape
from unwanted ardent male pursuit. In the Greek myth of Daphne and Phoebus,
Daphne flees from male desire by becoming tree:
“… thin bark closed over her breast, her hair
turned into leaves, her arms into branches, her feet so swift a moment ago
stuck fast in slow-growing roots, her face was lost in the canopy. Only her
shining beauty was left.” (BK1: 525-552)
Daphne loses her human form and becomes
something he can never have –
although this somehow seems to intensify his desire and longing for her:
“Even like this Phoebus loved her and, placing
his hand against the trunk, he felt her heart still quivering under the new
bark. He clasped the branches as if they were parts of human arms, and kissed
the wood.” (BK1: 553-567)
In this way, there is still something
lingering of Woodman in her images – something that feels as subtle as a
heartbeat.
This theme is echoed in the myth of Syrinx –
when Pan’s eternal longing for his transformed object of desire becomes his new
art form:
“… Pan, when he thought he now had Syrinx,
found that instead of the nymph’s body he only held reeds from the marsh: and,
while he sighed there, the wind in the reeds, moving, gave out a clear,
plaintive sound. Charmed by this new art and its sweet tones the god said “This
way of communing with you is still left to me” So unequal lengths of reed,
joined together with wax, preserved the girl’s name.” (BK1: 689-721)
To me, this theme of escape from her own form
to be absorbed by a larger entity seems apparent in Woodman’s images – she does
not respond to an environment, she becomes part of it.
Jui Chi Liu states: “The more Woodman
traverses and dissolves her corporeal boundaries, the more she refuses to allow
her body to be defined by the viewer.” (p28) and referencing Amelia Jones from
The Artist Body, quotes: “Abandoning overt objecthood to present herself as a
non-presence, Woodman removes herself physically from the viewer, discouraging
the kind of voyeurism normally invoked by the female body.”
Here, both Liu and Jones comment on the same
theme of dispersing the full-bodied eroticism of the female form (as seen by
the male gaze) into an environment as is inherent in Greek mythology and the
female metamorphoses. What is interesting is that this removal of the erotic
object of desire brings about a more romantic sense of whimsical loss, a
haunting pang that lingers. I would argue that this is just as true for
Woodman’s viewers as it is for Phoebus or Pan.
IMAGES – WOODMAN
My IMAGES & TEXT from RAW-(Material)-NATURE
SPECIMENS
Daphne tree from SHERWOOD OAKS
LAKE EDEN
(describe more about how this theme relates to my
project?)
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RUBEDO
REDDENING – MANIFESTATION
“Relationship with Raw Materials / Ana Mendieta”
In her Silueta series, Ana Mendieta
transcends her human body by leaving the imprint of its form on nature. She
embraces a ritualistic approach to this relationship of body to earth and
becomes a catalyst of transformation to the raw materials she interacts with.
In her essay on Mendieta From the Personal to the Transpersonal: Self Reclamation Through
Ritual-in-performance, Deborah K Ultan is deliberate in her description of
the purposes of ritual, providing context for the reader of Mendieta’s Cuban
Santeria background: “In studies on ritual, we have learned that the
performance process is used to create a sort of nexus where the body and the
mind are released from consciousness. Releasing consciousness during the ritual
process is to enter a temporary subconscious state, a transient or liminal
moment when the boundaries of a conscious attachment to the self, a thing, a
place, or a social body, are eliminated. The liminal is the most fragile,
vulnerable and tenuous moment and when fully accessed may function as the
vehicle to renewal or transformation.”
Once this understanding has been established,
she goes on to say of Mendieta’s practice: “By submerging or tracing herself
into the womb of maternal nature, Mendieta enters the transforming liminal, to
re-emerge leaving a symbolic form that echoes archetypes.” (p33)
IMAGES – MENDIETA
(Write more about the specific works shown here)
In my RAW-(Material) series, much of the work
involves a somewhat similar process in that it takes on a ritualistic approach,
a sense of transcendence from the body and a melding with nature. There is a
purposeful impact of the body on nature and a resulting transformation of the
raw materials.
My IMAGES & TEXT from RAW-(Material)-NATURE
SPECIMENS
SAND
WHEAT
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CITRINITAS
YELLOW – COAGULATION – BECOMING
“Altered States of Consciousness / Maya Deren”
Here, I want to expand more on
the role of ritual in performance / performance in ritual. Referencing Maya
Deren’s Divine Horsemen: Living gods of Haiti and her documentation of trance
and possession in Haitian Voudou ritual.
I am interested in: a) the role
of art and performance necessary to achieve a transformed/altered state – and:
b) the art and performance that results FROM the transformed/altered state.
I want to compare this with
other practices that use a form of ritual to achieve an altered state of
consciousness in performance.
I will use references from Yoga
practices and to Mihaly Csikszentimihalyi’s “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal
Experience”. I will refer to quotes from Butoh master Kazuo Ohno and others to
describe the theme of altered consciousness in Butoh dance – and I will compare
these to my own practice.
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GOLD
ARRIVAL
“My Material Culture”
My IMAGES & TEXT from RAW-(Material)-NATURE
SPECIMENS
APPLES
ELDERBERRIES
HAYBALE
AUTUMN LEAVES
This is my own personal material culture.
What materials are available? What is in
season? What is ripe, ready, offering itself for harvest? What is this material
asking me to do? The materials are my collaborators, even my authors. They invite
me to respond. The tasks they give are specific. In action, the task becomes
gesture. The gesture becomes new material for the body in performance.
My IMAGES & TEXT from RAW-(Material)-BODY
STUDIES
BODY FALLING
BODY HAYBALE GESTURES
BODY SPINNING
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PEACOCK TAIL
DISPLAY OF ALL COLOURS IN WHITE LIGHT – PRISM
“Return to Pedagogy”
This section will use the
metaphor of the prism to deconstruct my pedagogy into its separate elements. I
will talk about the development of last years project and how it has been
employed in the Raw Material project.
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CONCLUSION
