LIFE IS1 JUST THAT2

AND/OR THAT THOU ART

OR TAT TVAM ASI
OR PERHAPS ID TU ES
Dialog Pieces by Ari J. Adipurwawidjana3

1
This text intends to explore the question about how being may be addressed through
creative activities (i.e. art) without falling back on the limitations of language. If language is
assumed, as proposed by Jakobson, to operate in terms of metaphor (substituting being with
something else that would then be not the thing itself) and metonymy (conveying an aspect or
extension of thing as the whole thing), language must be completely inadequate of addressing
being. It may even be said that language in fact overthrows being, like the law of the father
overthrows the real and somatic, replacing birth via the vagina with Athena sprouting full-grown
from Zeus’s head. The question about language as expression is also significant in that any kind
of expression implies that something confined and imperceptible in the subject is made apparent
in the world where other subjects exist. This subject is the speaking subject, the sujet en procès,
the operating consciousness of the expressed product. The task is then is to explore the
possibility of having the being of that something and the consequences of that being just be
among the subjects, either as artist or audience or both. An alternative of this task is to present
the impossibility of the task by unmasking the illusionary effects of various media. Because the
identification of the limitation is necessary for the transcending of it, I think, the latter is what I
shall do.
2
That is the something, which should be ineffable. It should be such because when this
thing is conveyed through language, the idea or essence of the thing precedes its existence for the
audience. Language is as much a breach of being-for-itself, more so for being-in-itself, as the
idea of an a priori essence of the thing in the mind of God, which of course assumes that there is
a God or a universal being or a brahman (be it immanent or transcendent, personal or
impersonal). This That has been the great mystical mystery for many (ironically enough) an
essentialist tradition. For Western tradition (deriving from the Semitic), the case of the burning
bush with the immemorial statement: “I am that I am” (in which God is supposed to reveal its
true name: YHWH) is the most significant. Here, ego (and I would like to suggest here also the
id), the quod, the cogito, and absolute existence (of the thing as it is)—Das Sein (without the
need for Das Sollen)—becomes one heap. In the Vedic tradition (its being of Aryan origin may
also have some way made its way to the Western heritage), “tat tvam asi” (literally, “that you
are,” which I have daringly—considering my lack of competence in both Sanskrit and Latin—
transposed into “id tu es,” for the mere—if not just plainly naïve—intention of demonstrating the
phonetic resemblance of the subtitle in three archaic, or actually quite dead, languages, as well
as, more importantly, to conveniently, introduce the element of desire, the somatic, and the
corporeal into the discourse) is one of the mahāvākyas (great pronouncements), of which the
three others are “prajnānam brahman” (foreknowledge is brahman), “aham brahma asmi” (I am
brahman), and “ayam ātmā brahma’ (this soul is brahman). These pronouncements are helpful,
as it presents in aphoristic terms the basic elements which may be addressed, rejected, modified,

1
Persons4
Woman5
Man6
Body7
The stage8, which usually is in fact the world, is dark (and, from the perspective of
many9, a proscenium). Light is perpendicularly projected onto a screen10 set center
stage. Differently colored light (or absence thereof) will create the impression of
represented reality projected on the screen. Deviation from perpendicularity will

and juggled in this text.

The first elements that needs to be addressed is, of course, being. The word “be” (asi,
asmi, es, être) is obviously fundamental. Further elaboration would be futile. Then, there is “I.”
If I am Brahman, I am the absolute I. That “I” does not need to think because that I is absolute
knowledge. That “I” does not need to live because that I is the absolute soul. That “I” does not
need to need because that “I” is God. Then, is the other I. Then, there am I.
3
This name, this badge of shame for lacking adequate competence in Sanskrit and Latin,
is I who I think I am. Well, I do think after all. Therefore, I know I am (for if not, who else would
be thinking this?). The existence of this name precedes my existence. My mother designed the
name even before she met my father. She designed the name before the ovum that was to be me
slid unconsciously down her Fallopian tube. She designed the name before that odd tailed cell
brought the other half-set of chromosomes, making the ovum me. It is her dream of me. The
name stood waiting, peering down my mother’s extraordinarily widely stretched vagina walls
and vulvae. When I was born the name had caught me in its net before the obstetrician did with
his hands. Perhaps, I was still-born. The name killed me. And, now, this name attached to a body
with fingers continue to tap on the keyboard. In texts, names are always lonely.
4
The idea of a person is a peculiar thing. A person is understood to be peculiar in that she
is supposedly different from another person. The person often refers to the body of the person as
the body is often referred to as the person of a name. In fact, it is actually the name that
differentiates one person from another, not only the name of the person in question but also the
names of the attributes of the person that distinguish the person from another person. The name
of the person is assumed to represent the essence of the person. The name is assumed to be the
true name. Because I have hesitations about truly representative names, I have excluded such
names form the dialog pieces. My own name is an exception. Here, it serves, what Foucault
calls, the author-function to which this work point and is attributed. My name is also necessary
inasmuch it serves the purposes of administration whether it pertains to the ownership or
academic administration. In any case, my name is really separate from the text though it is linked
to it in paratextual ways.
5
The woman is just the woman because she is merely a representational figure projected
on the screen. She is not a woman in any real sense but rather a woman in general as she is
conceived in my mind and to be impressed in the minds of the audience. Because she does not
really refer to a particular woman in reality, she will be represented on the screen in a variety of
ways. She will be projected alternatively as a drawing, a painting, a photograph, and a motion
picture. She will be represented as a whole body as well as parts of the body. Different parts of
her body will appear in different angles and perspectives. The attributes of her body will not be
similar from one image to another. She will be projected without the illusion that the projected

2
somewhat destroy the illusion by casting a distorted, in the Byzantine or Gothic
manner, representation of reality. Monochromatic incandescent light will be, on cue,
projected from below and onto a composite of paint and papier-mâché blotches
(henceforth, the painting) giving the impression of an image of an old man to the
left of the screen (the audience’s right), and accordingly enough representing an old
man. Offstage, there are bodies: sitting in seats, standing on heels, standing on
soles, standing on souls, leaning on walls, leaning on each other and all others for
definition. One body (B) walks through the aisle, unushered, and suddenly picks up
speed before it attempts to leap on stage, but fails. It tries to climb on stage, but
slips back down. It walks back to the aisle, and begins the second attempt to leap

image is in fact one person. (If the members of the audience choose to assume so, that is their
problem). She will be projected because she is the projection of that image of a woman in my
mind. I am Pygmalion and she is my Galatea. (These are not true names.)
6
Generally speaking, there is not much to say about a man. In this performance, the man
will take the form of a painting on canvas. It will be in acrylic because I am a messy painter and
prefer water-based pigment to do my visual work. Watercolors are too delicate and it does not
work well with papier-mâché. It does not work well not because papier-mâché does not absorb
watercolors well (because it does) but because a lot of them will be needed to have the colors
stand out. That will be expensive, which would violate the principle of poverty in true art. At
least, that is what I think Kafka’s hunger artist suggests. There is moral value in art created out of
poverty. Besides, I come from the Third World.
The canvas is in fact a screen (or, a screen a canvas). The difference is that the
representational image is not projected on canvas but rather physically put there. The image on
canvas is permanent. However, the image on canvas can have texture, and even be three
dimensional. Hence, the use of papier-mâché. With papier-mâché, plaster of Paris can also be
used though too much again may be a breach of the poverty principle.
The poverty principle is principal in the exploration of being and media that limits the
experience of it. It suggests the deliberate taking away of value, either monetary or semantic. For
the work of art it allows being-in-itself. For the artist, it allows being-for-itself. (Perhaps, the
next step is to find a giant banyan tree, and wait for enlightenment.)
7
The body will be my body. It will be the body linked intricately to the text but remains
outside the text. In the performance, it will be the body that will have the ability to cross
illusionary boundaries between the writer, auctor, actor, character, and spectator. It will be the
body whose hands will actually form the image on canvas. It will be the body that infects the
character on the screen with disease. It will be the body that infects the spectator with unease. It
will be the body that will continue to exist after the performance, and walk out of the
performance area with the body of spectators toward ordinary, everyday, uninteresting
unscripted performances. It will be the body that performs with or without consciousness.
8
The stage is I think one of the most illusionary of all media because it gives the illusion
that it is not an illusion. Surely, whatever or whoever is present on the stage is of course there,
and that is by no means an illusion. The illusion of the stage lies in its limitation of itself and
separation from the audience, both seemingly absent. In fact, they are absent. However, to cross
the stage is a sin. Aristotle said so. The unreachable Apollo, too bright to see, too high to grasp,
says so also. With Dionysius or Pan or the young Krshna playing its flute, running and dancing
between the stalks and leaves of Ceres the Mother, Demeter, Sri Pohaci after they smile, there
was no stage. We would just sing and dance and there was no telling who was who because

3
onto the stage. It fails. The stage is high. Feet, however, are on the floor. The body
directs the protrusion on its topside, commonly identified as the head, towards stage
right and left, and due to the presence of optical instruments, commonly known as
eyes, it discovers steps. So, it takes steps to ascend the steps, one step at a time,
and it is finally there, on stage, apparent and hopefully noticed. It spreads out
protrusions from its sides, commonly recognized as arms. Then, it leans forward,
takes the arms back to its sides, and jumps off the stage. Almost simultaneously, the
light on the screen begins to take the form of the face of a woman (W) facing the
direction of the painting. Sounds11 become audible, which may be, from this moment
to the end of the program of performed events, taken for granted to represent the
speech of the woman.
W It’s strange when you know death is near.
Light is projected onto the painting revealing the image of the man (M), at which
time sounds of different sonic qualities become perceptible, which at this point
should be recognized as the voice of the old man (M).
M. Hasn’t it always been?

everybody was there engaged in each other but not for each other. That is what Augusto Boal
says Aristotle says. I believe him.
After the stage, however, there am I and there are you and there are they. People see
invisible walls that were not there at all. People do not dare cross the non-existent wall. These
walls create separation necessary for social order, like the separation of land from the sea, and
light from darkness. Some stages are less illusionary than others. They do not trust the mental
capacity of some people. Less cerebral people might actually see that there are in fact no walls
and no stage. That would be the beginning of anarchy. So, stages are raised. Then, everybody
would be in their due degree.
Proscenium stages are less illusionary than arenas. The less illusionary stages are,
however, the more limiting. The trick with stages is that in fact, depending on the degree of their
illusion, is realizing that there is always a space where there are in fact no walls. Through that
opening being may be allowed to be experienced.
9
From the perspective of the characters except the body, there is no stage at all. In fact,
the characters, being-in-itself, do not have any perspective at all, lacking consciousness.
10
Screens are less illusionary than stages in their limitations, but more in their
representation. The degree of representational illusion depends on 1) whether the image
projected on the screen changes and 2) whether the image attempts to give the impression that it
is in fact the mimesis of a real event, person, or thing. A consistent image is more illusionary
than a changing image. A moving image is more illusionary but more representational than a still
image. An image on a screen that pretends to be three-dimensional is the most illusionary of
media.
11
The voice quality of the woman will remain the same indicating that it is the voice of
the same woman. It should become apparent to the audience the contrast between singular voice
and the constantly changing image. This should evoke the understanding that the performance is
in fact staged and an illusion. It is the voice that remains constant because it is the voice that
represents the psyche or subjectivity of the narrative. It is the voice that constructs the perceived
identity.

4
W. Not really. As the woman speaks, the qualities of her physical features alter
always as if different women are speaking. At times she is represented by a drawing,
and at other times, a painting or photographic image, but always mediated by the
light projected on the screen.
M. Being born is the same as being murdered12. Premeditated too. Perfect.
Everything’s set.
W. You think so?
M. Don’t you think so?
W. Don’t you think so?
M. You’re playing with words again.
W. Like you play with life.
M. I don’t play with it. I just live it. You know. Waiting to die.
W. What are you supposed to do while you wait?
M. What I said: wait.
W. Must be boring as hell.
M. Must be. Maybe worse even.
W. Do you think it would be that bad?
M. You don’t think so?
W. So what’s the point of eating, drinking, getting a job, getting laid, getting
married, having children.
M. That’s part of the game.
W. So, you do play?
M. I don’t play it. I just have a part. A small part.
W. Yes, and you play the part.
M. No. They play me.
W. I think you do play. He plays too.
Silence takes over the play. Light on the painting disappears. Images of the face
attributed to the body previously on stage, takes over that of the woman. Still and
motion alternatively. Color, sepia, and B/W alternatively. Proportional and distorted
alternatively. Absent and present simultaneously. The body, apparent learning from
past failures manages to jump on stage, at which almost simultaneous moment the
image of the woman reappears. An orifice on the face of the body, commonly known

12
From this point onwards I will stop providing explanatory notes or comments. I will let
the event take its own being. Anyway, my body will be performing, and I cannot well be in the
performance and make comments in the text at the same time. I cannot be at two occasions at the
same instance.

5
as the mouth opens and reveals a cavity which most probably contains organs the
articulation of which apparently produces the following speech.
B. In the beginning was not the word. In the beginning was just was. And the was was
with the is. And the was was the is as the is be. In the beginning be I. I be. No tense,
no time, just free movement in space, infinite space, eternal movement in space,
perpetual motion. Objects in motion tend to stay in the speed of motion a priori
without the intervention of external force is the same as objects at rest tend to stay
at rest without the intervention of external force. Inertia. Gravitation is the same all
over the place; everything falls at the same pace, the same momentum, the same
painful thump when you hit the ground. Not a pretty sound, neither healthy nor
sound. Had it not been for the atmosphere slowing spread things down. Spread before
you hit the ground: it is less hazardous to your health. You and I and he and she and
they and we. Ennui. We sit, and without the intervention of an external force, a
supreme force, we remain seated. No, gravitation is not the same all over the place
because gravity is greater on the couch, and cushions, in front of the TV. Gravity is
graver when you’re sinking. No need trying to hit the bottom because objects in
motion tend to stay in motion at the same velocity, same speed and direction without
the application of an unbalanced, uncontested, unilateral external force. No external
force? Being free is being without any kind of responsibility weighing you down. A
weighing down is gravity, which is an external force, like the state and its civic duties
and taxes and authority over I that be. Like gods demanding offerings burnt on altars,
sons and daughters slaughtered lovers to be loved by only them. Jealous gods are
these demanding gods. Demanding gods are wanting gods though gods shall not want.
They are not gods because all gods are probably dead, crucified, eaten, or forgotten.
Begotten and forgotten gods are dead. They can’t be gods, but they may be
ideological state apparatuses—weighing you down like gravity, constantly. Objects
that go faster or go slower or cannot make a decision whether to go faster or to go
slower or cannot make a decision whether to stay in motion or stop is not inertia.
Decisions are either grave, acute, or circumflex. And it doesn’t really matter if you
are really falling or rising because if there is no external force it is eternal. It is
because the earth and other heavenly bodies are round. You can stay in the ground,
fall till you hit the ground, rise till you hit the ground on another planet, or go round
and round and round the world till you get dizzy.
The voiced body jumps off the stage, and sits in the fourth row. Then, the image of
the women reappears on the screen.
W. You play other people too.
And, the incandescent light again pitifully illuminates the painting of the man from
below.
M. Like who?
W. Mother. Me.
M. Of course not.
W. Really.

6
M. Really. I don’t.
W. Don’t you, really?
M. Really. I really don’t.
W. That’s what he says.
M. Please. Don’t compare me to him.
W. Do I have a choice?
M. Of course, you do.
W. Of course not. We never have choices. You do though.
M. Like what?
W. Like X or Y, like in or out, like leave or stay, like speak or lie.
M. Stop with the figurative language.
W. Do I have a choice? You all make decorative figures out of us.
M. You’re making generalizations.
W. Whatever. Whatever you say. Whatever you please. But, please.
M. We aren’t all like that. We’re not all the same.
W. No, you’re not. But you see us all the same.
I’m not like that. If I were, how would I have chosen your mother to marry?
M. You see? You do play.
W. Maybe. When it counts.
M. But I never have. He chose me, but I didn’t really choose him. He chose himself for
me, and I didn’t choose anyone else. Then he leaves while I’m left with this disease.
It’s strange when you know death is near.
B. In the beginning was not the word, so the word can be with us but not all over us.
In the beginning should be the performance, action, bodies moving, like giving birth,
or copulation, some goddess shedding tears, or some dead goddess fertilizing soil
growing grains of wheat and rice. Or popping out of a cereal box, or seeping out of a
magic lamp. Then, you jump out and be fruitful and multiply, like meiosis and
mitosis, like viruses, like bacilli, like a plague. Jump into being, sliding out of vaginas,
sprouting out of divine heads, springing full grown out of the sea, splitting, killing this
one and creating the two and four and eight. At that rate, by the time you are all
used up you will have crowded every corner, suffocating the universe with your
genetic material. And that’s when you are totally free, and that is why in the
beginning was not the word.

Silence again

7
M. Like I said, Death has always been near and comes in whatever way it can. If not,
HIV then it’s something else. Life brings death.
W. It doesn’t feel that way when you’ve given birth.
M. I wouldn’t know.
W. Of course not. But I know. But I know that life doesn’t always mean death.
M. We can’t have the pleasure.
W. I guess not. Neither can he. So he goes around trying to avoid death but always
returning bringing death with him. But it’s my death he brings.
M. Yes. And his.
W. But he doesn’t admit it.
M. He’s clearly scared.
W. So then he gets to go around spreading death all over the place using his fear of
death as an excuse?
M. Well, no.
W. But not admitting won’t get rid of death.
M. Well, maybe because he’s never given birth, he doesn’t understand life and
doesn’t understand death.

For some time the silence returns.

W. So?
M. So he hasn’t learned to understand.
W. So he’ll always be that way because he’ll never give birth.
M. Maybe.
W. What about you.
M. I just wait.
W. And play.
M. Whenever I can, wherever I can.
W. What about me?
M. Wait.
W. And play?
M. Whenever you can, wherever you can.
W. Like when? Like where? Like how?
M. You probably no better. You’re the one who’s given birth.

8
W. Right.
M. Right.
W. What’ll happen to him, do you think?
M. He’ll die.
W. And in the mean time he plays.
M. Right. But with different rules.
W. But he still plays the game too. That’s not fair.
M. Yes. Life’s like that.
W. Maybe. And everyone plays.
M. Maybe.
W. Who wins?
M. We don’t keep the scores.
W. So, who does?
M. I don’t know. Probably nobody does.
W. So?
M. So what?
W. So, maybe life’s like that.
M. Yes, maybe.
W. Even after giving birth.
M. That’s why you need to give birth.
W. Even after you try.
M. Even after waiting for so long.
W. Yes. It’s strange.
M. It is. Life is
W. Just that.
Then, everything is dark as it was in the beginning, if there ever was one. 13

13
I cannot end this and not explain or make a comment. After all, the text has ended.

9
 Bibliography
Foucault, Michel. “What Is an Author?” Trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon. In
Contemporary Literary Criticism. Eds. Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schleifer. New
York: Longman, 1989: 263-275.
Genette, Gerard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Jane E. Lewin, trans. Ithaca: Cornell
UP, 1980.
Chatman, Seymour. Story and Discourse: Narrative and Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell UP, 1990.
Boal, Augusto. Theater of the Oppressed.New York: Theater Communications Group, 1985.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. New York: Washington Square Press, 1966.
Artaud, Antonin. The Theater and Its Double. New York: Grove Press, 1958.

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