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HEAD ROXY ART HOUSE
2 ROXBURGH PL
MORAG KEIL
EDINBURGH
EH8 9SU
WWW.EMBASSYGALLERY.ORG
Language and dress are, at any moment in history, complete
structures, constituted organically by a functional network of
norms and forms; and transformation or displacement of any one
element can modify the whole, producing a new structure: so,
inevitably, we are talking about a collection of balances in
movement, of institutions in flux.
Roland Barthes, The Language of Fashion
Titles.
But where were we?
Exterior.
What were we doing?
Establishing shot.
It was raining when we pulled into that petrol station as far as I
remember. But nothing was established, media, mediation,
leather gloves. Interior. Books.
Yeah, so we were in the car, it was raining.
Oh, but I was talking about Pierre Macherey, like how he was
saying the image that corresponded perfectly with the original
would no longer be an image; it remains an image by virtue of its
difference from that which it resembles. So I wonder then, if I
03.04.10 - 02.05.10
should commence by confessing that I am a composite
THURS - SUN
character or that any resemblance to persons living or dead is
1200 - 1800
purely coincidental. You had a generous personality, I loved it
OPENING: 02.04.10
and asked you if I could try it on.
1900 - 2100
Don't you think I understand? The hopeless dream of being. Not
seeming, but being. In every waking moment aware, alert. The
tug of war, what you are with others and who you really are. A
feeling of vertigo and a constant hunger to be finally exposed.
To be seen through, cut down, even obliterated.
ROXY ART HOUSE Two characters.
2 ROXBURGH PL Two characters. Interior. Medium shot. Immediate, perfect
EDINBURGH tense, perfect tension. I should have explained that much of this
EH8 9SU picture has been drawn from memory. Thereís a game, Kimís
WWW.EMBASSYGALLERY.ORG Game, you might have known it from Kipling. Firstly, I needed
you to empty your bag onto the table.
EMBASSY is a non-profit organisation for the promotion of Birkin, Kelly. Two characters, the latter was merely a retroactive
contemporary art run by a committee of volunteer directors:
capitalisation upon a self-evident and unpremeditated piece of
Benjamin Fallon celebrity endorsement. The former, though, was a much more
Shona Macnaughton cynical attempt to insinuate a seemingly spontaneous logic into
Francesca Nobilucci the hitherto ideologically reluctant acceptance of an inevitable
Ashleigh Reid
sociological shift towards affluence, among a superficially
emancipated cultural demograph. I like them both, and we
EMBASSY GALLERY LTD is registered in Scotland shouldnít underestimate the value of liking things. Most art has
Company Number:259872 nothing much to say if you donít actually like it in the first place.
Charity No. SC035780
Every tone of voice a lie.
Every gesture false.
EMBASSY is supported by: Every smile a grimace.
So then you emptied the bag onto the table. The past is a
paradise from which we are necessarily excluded, declared
Mary Warnock, and Iím trying to recall its contents. This is Kimís
Game, attempting to recollect, endeavouring to enter your bag,
aspiring to infiltrate your head. We could concur with Mary that,
in recalling something, we are employing imagination.
So the articles in your bag would represent you, in the way that
metaphors go beyond misleadingly literal words and sentences,
beyond language to an unconscious understanding, beyond the
subject towards pure predication. must make these objects myself. I must craft them by hand.
Close up. A cup of coffee. Two horses in sync. Two cups of coffee. One kitchen. A supermarket
It's bad luck to compare hands. shopping trolley serves as a clothes dryer.
I was trying on each metaphor at a time, the personification of 9.15-10am.
Paul Ricoeur, where turning an animate, non-sentient, abstract When I came home and looked in the mirror, I thought, but we look
entity into a living and feeling being, into a person, reminds us of alike. Don't misunderstand me. You're more beautiful. But somehow, I
the metaphorical transfer from the inanimate to the animate. think I could change myself into you if I tried.
Exterior. A cliff top, two horses move synchronously. Grass But then, it wasnít us who were going to France, so I wonder just who I
wearily perseveres in yellowing tufts, besieged by the elements expected to end up as.
and clinging to the unsympathetic terrain wherever it can. The If I remember an incident from a long time ago and I smile, am I being
possibility of the sea is an indistinct dream in the distance. optimistic?
What does it mean to persuade? Insert shots. Interiors. Actually, I was trying to become everyone, to go
People tell me that I'm a good listener. Isn't that strange? everywhere at once. I was alone, watching the television screen,
So did I want the truth? I canít handle the truth. The fact was reading a magazine. Baudrillard said that travel is a necessity and
fiction was as far as we could go. In childrenís literature, speed is a pleasure. Possession of a car implies more: the driving
empathy with animals is common, the acceptance of metaphor licence is a sort of a passport. I canít drive, but Iím a good passenger,
initiates an implicit understanding of the authorís position. Iím a good listener. The places youíve been, the friends youíve made.
Intimate objects intuit a true picture of the real Grace Kelly or Iíve been there, I know those people. Your handbag, your baggage, the
Jane Birkin. Where there is no self, no subject, only predication. stories youíve told. I made it myself, Iíve made it my own, these are my
Circumstantially I am alone, washing my hair, making coffee. But stories.
if I smell this coffee and involuntarily Iím in another place at a Did you speak to me last night?
distant time, is this purely an intellectual process? Or is it Were you in my room?
physical, like emotional intelligence, thinking with the heart. An Credits.
earring, reflective, a listener, reflexive.
Two bluebirds. We took a coffee break on our way to our
central metaphor. The white cliffs of Dover, our journey was in J. A. Harrington, London, 2010.
progress, would we be united? Perhaps I wouldnít know you,
perhaps we wouldnít recognise Suzanne Keen. Empathy with
situations tends to zero in on episodes, circumstances, or states
of relationship at points of irresolution. That is, empathy with plot
situation gravitates towards middles of plots, when problems
and enigmas have not yet been solved or brought to closure.
Dover, after the beginning and before the end, a romantic
symbol of past optimism, a memory of what could still be.
And what happens to everything that you make up your mind to Plagiography:
do? Is it necessary to do it all? Is it possible to be one and the
same person at the same time? I mean, two people? Ingmar Bergman Persona
Kimís Game. I have been trying to remember each item, one by Paul Ricoeur The Rule of Metaphor
one, each with a specific presence, each with a specific Pierre Macherey A Theory of Literary Production
resonance. The System of Objects. The tense of the David Lodge Language of Fiction
mythological object is the perfect, it is that which occurs in the Jean Baudrillard The System of Objects
present as having occurred in a former time, hence that which is Suzanne Keen Empathy and the Novel
founded upon itself, that which is 'authentic.' Antiques. Craft. Mary Warnock Memory
We are fascinated by what has been created, and is therefore
unique, because the moment of creation cannot be reproduced.
What Baudrillard has been telling me is that it's not enough to
remember the objects from your bag, the bracelet from your
wrist. To become you, to feel authentic empathy or absolute
metaphor, persuasion must come from the work of fiction. I