#but also it's like. at times it's a metaphor for capitalistic exploitation of the body. at others it's a metaphor for trans bodies

[ichorblossoms]

having thoughts about grimm's relationship with their body and humanity and how it probably transitions more post-story bc it's not until somewhere in p3 that it feels actually, fully comfortable in its own skin for all its inhumanity, and i think that's enough for it to unlock new gender thoughts

this got long so i'm putting it under the cut. i'm just rambling abt character shit over the timeline of the story and whatnot yeehaw

overall, grimm's not someone who hates their body and all the ways it's not human, especially not to the point of harming themself about it or being overly reckless (their sense of survival and self-preservation are Very strong), and at no point in the story do they really hate their body or anything, but they struggle to see it as a human body. before i get too into how the story affects things; they exist in a body that was modified at a decently young age, they've grown up in this body and know how it moves and reacts, but as they distance themself from their past, they realize that a lot of what felt like decisions they chose to make, including modification, were actually the result of manipulation and abuse, so their body carries a lot of...reminders that fade in time but never truly disappear. and they got out of that! they survived and won't go back! but because of all of this shit (< grimm backstory post) it left them not only with an emotional gap between them and most people, but a physical one too, and that's even harder to form relationships with people without hiding because opinions on humods among the non-modified majority usually falls somewhere between "patronizing pity" and "violent disgust" (then you occasionally get the outliers like yarrow who are fascinated by it, or the folks who choose modification out of excitement and not desperation, but again, outliers).

which, grimm doesn't consciously carry any of the "ohh they're going to think i'm a disgusting abomination of a creature" sort of angst that i often loathe in fiction, but instead has this perpetual sense of "i'm comfortable in my own skin, but i need to hide what i am for my own safety because i am not human" which isn't entirely untrue, but it keeps them from sitting down and thinking about like. what they want. or analyzing their personhood and how that's affected my being humod. in a way i think gender stuff comes easier bc grimm is so comfortable letting other people just assume whatever of them bc they're more concerned with "passing" as human and therefore whatever other ppl percieve grimm as gender-wise has no bearing on their own sense of gender (if that makes sense)

of course the actual thing is they have a metric fuckton of internalized shame around being humod they don't/can't look in the eye, but there's no way in hell grimm would have the self awareness or emotional intelligence for that. at least not at this point

and one of the many things that grimm runs away from at the end of p1 is yarrow's curiosity about their inhuman body, because why the fuck would it confront the reason why someone showing interest in them for what they are causes them immense discomfort? that's enough vulnerability for the next five years, thank you very much.

for all they run away from everything there, a lot of emotions still linger and that empowers grimm to at least sit down and think about what it would like its body to be like and change it accordingly, which is great! transitioning and exhibiting control over their own body is what grimm needs! it doesn't solve everything bc they're still paranoid as all hell about having their modifications seen by anyone, but damn, having tits sure ain't bad.

then everything with grimm coming back in p2 happens and here yarrow is, enthusiastically loving it and its body for all it is (after the whole. yknow "hey that the fuck is going on between us what is your goal here asshole"), so a pocket of the world where it doesn't have to worry about constantly wearing like five facades opens up and it's comfortable for the time being and some of that stuff can start to be slowly unpacked, which is well and good, but grimm still is distinctly aware of how it feels different from yarrow because it's humod and they're human and that's not really as big a deal as grimm is thinking but. yknow. the hypervigilance

and then of p3 happens and yarrow becomes humod and of course the shame in letting that happen is there and it's overwhelming and it's crushing and grimm thinks they can never do enough to apologize for dooming yarrow to the same existence it has but worse bc he can't hide like they can but then yarrow...just... isn't doomed by it. he revels in his new and weird body like the weird doctor he is despite the horror of it happening in the first place! he can't hide it like grimm could before (grimm stopped caring about hiding bc it's not like yarrow could. plus pretending to be fully human is negligible when you're like. hunting people down and causing extreme property damage), but that doesn't change that he can clack his mandibles like tongs or has a secondary pair of arms or a fucked up proboscis tongue to [redacted], which is fucking cool! how could grimm ever be disgusted by yarrow's body when the not-quite-man they went through hell to find and still love so much loves it! yarrow's still a person! maybe not fully human anymore, but what does that matter!

and there's way too much other shit going on in p3 for them to parse everything out but loving yarrow and his humod body gradually allows grimm to circle around and reconsider their own body and relationship with it for themself and eventually question what about hiding/ambiguity they liked so much and if it's still "useful" or should they make some more assertions about who and what they are. also how the shame of not being "human" they carried for so long doesn't actually matter and is not exclusive to personhood unlike their teen years suggested and also maybe yarrow calling them his "wife" set off something too idk

after that it's even more vague soup than the actual canon of the story bc i'd like to. y'know. write the story itself first before thinking about what happens after everything but it's good to have a trajectory. or something idk

[parismemes]

SENTENCE STARTERS FROM AN ARGUMENT THAT GOT OUT OF HAND: THE SEQUEL

"are there more eyes or legs? in the world."

"i feel it in my bones."

"think about all the beetles and the ants."

"but think about all the fish."

"there are way more bugs than fish. every bug has like 6 legs. but every fish has like 2 eyes."

"how do you know how many fish there are?"

"um i speak to the fish personally they told me."

"i'm just saying i've seen like a million spiders in my house but i've never seen a fish."

"ok well potatoes also have eyes and there are way more potatoes and fish combined than bugs."

"have you SEEN ants? they're everywhere."

"one quadrillion ants."

"SPIDERS HAVE A PROPORTIONATE NUMBER OF EYES AND LEGS."

"110 TRILLION MOSQUITOS."

"DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH A QUADRILLION IS?"

"DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY POTATOES ARE IN A MILLION METRIC TONS?"

"the bugs will kill your potatoes and then what will you have?"

"consider: every person with glasses has four eyes."

"we're not accepting metaphorical eyes."

"THERE'S SO MANY BUGS YOU CANT EVEN SEE."

"legs are amputated more often than eyes."

"it's called being creative."

"if something is called a leg or an eye it counts."

"source: IT'S A QUADRILLION ANTS."

"there's not 2 quadrillion fanart. that's literally physically not possible."

"oh it must've flew by me because we are going so fast."

"NEEDLES HAVE EYES."

"millipedes. there are so fucking many of them, dude. they have so many legs."

"i'm not talking about needles, ___. i'm talking about real things."

"YEAH MILLIPEDE GANG!"

"needles are real, you fucking pickle."

"NEEDLES ARE FAKE NOW?"

"they are only figments of our imagination. collective mass hysteria."

"i've never seen a needle in my life."

"millipedes are fake."

"look at these religious texts. they prove the millipede."

"THIS is subliminal messaging actually. this beamed the idea of millipedes existing into your brains."

"what does that have to do with religion?"

"bugs reign supreme."

"bugs aren't real."

"YOU BE NICE. THEY'RE LITTLE. THEY'RE TOO SMALL TO FIGHT BACK AGAINST YOUR HATE SPEECH."

"bug bug bug. IT'S BEES BABY!"

"i'm full of bugs so i count."

"HE'S NOT MULTIPLE PEOPLE."

"that's like saying every time i move my leg it's a new leg."

"you sound like a dumb ass."

"eyes are more common because full bodies are a pain in the ass."

"it's not a good measurement because literally anyone can unbalance it."

"you're just mad because millipede supremacy."

"sometimes things don't work perfectly, ___!"

"ANTS ARE TEMPORARY."

"what the fuck is a millipede."

"ants reproduce so fast. they multiply. like rabbits which ALSO HAVE MORE LEGS."

"THEY'RE STILL TEMPORARY. EVERYTHING IS."

"ants live for ever."

"newton's law says that we do know that."

"newton can't tell me what to do. fuck the law."

"oh yeah the one hurricane happening at any given time ever?"

"i feel like you guys don't know how big a quadrillion is."

"THEY CAN'T DEFEND THEMSELVES SHUT THE FUCK UP."

"I CAN'T GO TO COURT FOR AN ANT I DON'T KNOW THE ANT LAW."

"you know what? i'm starting to think YOU aren't real. what living person would be so cruel to little guys like them? no one real that's who."

"that's not even mentioning the beetle and mosquito and scorpion and crab and starfish AND CHAIR AND TABLE."

"no they don't bitch ass."

"stop this anti-ant propaganda."

"i know more about ants than you do genius."

"says the person who thinks OHIO is a place."

"capitalism propaganda is notoriously pretending the midwest does not exist."

"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW MY BUGS?"

"if ants were real, they would have five eyes."

"HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF CAPITALISM?"

"that's not true 5 is a stupid number for eyes."

"ohio is fake."

"baby. baby boy."

"the midwest IS capitalist propaganda it exists only to produce corn and middle-american families with traditional values, everything else is an outlier."

"he's got little boots!"

"you say that like the people in the midwest were not exploited by the capitalist society of america and by the time certain parts of the midwest became of little use to the capitalist machine, the system ultimately failed them and broke them down. the midwest, especially the rust belt, was a precursor and a warning of capitalist failure."

"LOBSTERS!"

"ANOTHER WIN FOR THE PRAWNY BOYS!"

"iguanas have three eyes."

"it doesn't count for eyes unless more eyes than legs."

"potatoes have zero legs and can have up to ten eyes."

"two is less than a quadrillion."

"okay but tiamat only has four legs and she has ten eyes."

"i was gonna say something really bad. it was about the h... never mind."

"that's what the government wants you to think."

"are YOU a capitalist too?"

"worms on strings have two eyes and no legs."

"THERE ARE JARS AND JARS OF FREE FLOATING GOOGLY EYES IN THE WORLD."

"they probably cost a lot of money."

"i straight up thought you were saying there were jars and jars of actual real eyes and i was gonna ask you how you'd even know that."

"well, when they prepare your body to be buried, they take an ice cream scoop and scoop out your eyes."

"YOU'RE HURTING OUR ARGUMENT. YOU JUDAS."

"i'm going to eat your eyes and then there's gonna be two less eyes in the world."

"oh yeah, the QUADRILLION snakes?"

"beholders literally are not real."

"habushu has a snake in every jar."

"i was just too busy trying not to say human centipede."

"i have so many grass hopping outside."

"cicadas... the sweet song."

"why is your grass hopping?"

"i also have so many house centipedes just living here in my basement with me."

"you said they weren't real."

"you take things i say seriously and that is your issue not mine."

"i have autism."

"we ALL have autism."

"i'm sorry you took my word as god on the realness of a common household item."

"my mental fortitude is unmatched i am a FORTRESS."

"my fortress is only legs. wake up."

"WHAT ABOUT THE BABA YAGA?"

"i made a diagram of the house."

"there are literally two eyes in that picture."

"OH SO WINDOWS ARE EYES NOW BUT THEY CAN'T BE DOORS?"

"ok but are there more windows or doors in baba yaga's hut?"

"I GUESS THE DEFINITION OF A WINDOW IS ONLY FLUID WHEN IT SUITS YOUR ARGUMENT."

"windows are NOT EYES. but they are doors."

"I ASSUMED IT WAS A RABBIT. SO FUCK YOU."

"how can we trust your judgment now?"

"damn even triangles got legs."

"my refrigerator also has legs cuz it's running. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!"

"i gotta go catch my fridge."

"or will your fridge catch you...?"

"no, he's scared of me."

"the most dangerous game."

"i would be scared of you, too, if you opened me up and looked at my insides when you were hungry."

"i can't count all the glasses in the world and history of it."

"do not eat the bees. we need them. they're disappearing at an alarming rate."

"lots of bees. lots of legs."

"ok. don't see how that's more than a quadrillion."

"i literally gave you needles"

"insects don't fucking EXIST."

"in my heart they exist, and i think that absolutely counts."

"i'm sorry you can't afford better glasses but when you get the right prescription everything becomes clearer and you can see the little guys."

"THERE'S LIKE FOUR PEACOCKS. ever."

"name one peacock--- oh shit kung fu panda. name two peacocks!"

"name one of them and DON'T SAY THE ONE FROM KUNG FU PANDA."

"unfortunately, i did know someone in our town who had a pet peacock."

"check facted."

"ok that's not a quadrillion."

"i don't think that's a real number."

"how can anyone possibly count that high?"

"BACTERIA DO IN FACT WALK!"

"see you in a few years."

"the eyes decompose so nobody wins."

"eye socket isn't part of the eyes."

"leg bones are part of the leg."

"leg bones aren't called leg, they have other names."

"leg is connected to the. leg bone."

"put me into orbit."

"bones in the legs are more often referred to by name, such as tibia."

"some of us are stupid."

"mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. haha microwave."

"so you can count the bones but only if it's a full skeletal structure of a full leg."

"snotelek wins again."

"WAIT THERE'S SO MANY DEAD BODIES MISSING THEIR EYES IN THE GROUND."

"THE SKELETON ARMY COMES THROUGH FOR LEG GANG!"

"oh my fucking god the queen died."

[schizopilledjester]

A blood black nothingness began to spin.

Began to spin.

Let's move on to system.

System.

Feel that in your body? The system.

What does it feel like to be part of the system? System.

Is there anything in your body that wants to resist the system? System.

Do you get pleasure out of being a part of the system? System.

Have they created you to be a part of the system? System.

Is there security in being a part of the system? System.

Is there a sound that comes with the system? System.

We're going to go on.

The System: Inescapable Mechanisms of Control

The poem begins with “A blood black nothingness began to spin. Began to spin,” immediately evoking the image of a cyclical, self-perpetuating void—just as capitalism spins endlessly, consuming everything in its path. The repetition of “system�� throughout the poem—“What does it feel like to be part of the system? System.”—parallels how individuals are entangled in capitalist structures. The question, “Is there security in being a part of the system?” reflects the false sense of safety provided by the system, much like how capitalism promises stability but ultimately traps its participants within its confines, offering hollow assurances of prosperity while perpetuating inequality.

This “system” in the poem mimics the capitalist and patriarchal frameworks discussed in the essay, systems that “mold” individuals into roles to maintain dominance and reinforce cycles of consumption, fear, and division. The line “Have they created you to be a part of the system?” directly mirrors the essay’s exploration of indoctrination—whether through capitalism’s exploitation of labor, patriarchy’s gendered hierarchies, or society’s consumption-driven culture. It is a system designed not only to regulate but to program individuals into submission.

As the poem’s speaker asks, “Is there a sound that comes with the system?” we are reminded of how subtle and pervasive these structures are. The system is not a tangible entity; it is an ever-present hum, guiding and constraining human behavior through invisible mechanisms—just as the essay describes the complex entrapment of individuals within cycles of propaganda and systemic oppression.

Cells.

They were all put together one at a time. Cells.

Millions and billions of them. Cells.

Were you ever arrested? Cells.

Did you spend much time in the cell? Cells.

Have you ever been in an instituion? Cells.

Do they keep you in a cell? Cells.

When you're not performing your duties do they keep you in a little box? Cells.

Cells: The Confined Nature of Individual Existence

The metaphor of “cells” is pervasive in both the poem and the essay. The poem’s relentless repetition of “cells” underscores how individuals are reduced to fragments within larger systems—isolated, disconnected, and confined: “They were all put together one at a time. Cells. Millions and billions of them.” This speaks directly to the essay’s discussion of how capitalism and patriarchy box people into predetermined roles, controlling them within both literal and figurative cells. Whether these are the cells of the prison-industrial complex, gendered expectations, or consumerist identities, individuals are confined to these structures and have little agency outside them.

“Have you ever been in an institution? Cells. Do they keep you in a cell? Cells.” Here, the poem makes explicit the correlation between systemic oppression and physical confinement. Prisons, mental health institutions, or societal expectations are all manifestations of a broader capitalist and patriarchal order that seeks to control and contain. This resonates with the essay’s exploration of gatekeeping, particularly the ways in which certain communities—whether through racial profiling, economic inequality, or systemic misogyny—are forced into “cells” that limit their mobility, power, and autonomy.

The image of “cells” also reflects the atomization of individuals under capitalism, where human relationships are commodified, and people are isolated within their individual pursuits of survival. The essay discusses how this disconnection is maintained through fear-mongering and manipulation, much like the poem’s “cells” serve as barriers that prevent genuine connection and collective resistance.

Interlinked.

What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Interlinked.

Do they teach you how to feel finger to finger? Interlinked.

Do you long for having your heart interlinked? Interlinked.

Do you dream about being interlinked? Iterlinked.

Have they left a place for you where you can dream? Interlinked.

What's it like to hold your child in your arms? Interlinked.

What's it like to play with your dog? Interlinked.

Do you feel that there's a part of you that's missing? Interlinked.

Do you like to connect to things? Interlinked.

What happens when that linkage is broken? Interlinked.

Have they let you feel heartbreak? Interlinked.

Did you buy a present for the person you love? Within cells interlinked.

Why don't you say that three times?

Within cells interlinked. Within cells interlinked. Within cells interlinked.

Interlinked: Connection as Subversive Resistance

The poem’s exploration of human connection—“What’s it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Interlinked.”—presents an opportunity for resistance against the isolating forces of capitalism. In a world where human relationships are commodified or distorted by the system, the yearning for connection becomes a subversive act. This aligns with the essay’s argument that reclaiming human bonds is essential in resisting systemic oppression.

The repetition of “interlinked” suggests that despite the system’s best efforts to confine and control, there is still a desire for connection: “Do you long for having your heart interlinked? Interlinked.” In a society dominated by capitalist values, where human relationships are often transactional, the act of interlinking—of forming real, meaningful bonds—becomes a revolutionary act. The poem asks, “Do you dream about being interlinked?” just as the essay discusses the importance of solidarity and collective action in fighting back against oppressive systems.

Furthermore, the line “Do you feel that there’s a part of you that’s missing? Interlinked” speaks to the profound alienation experienced under capitalism, as individuals are torn apart from one another and from themselves. The essay emphasizes how fear-mongering and propaganda perpetuate this alienation, discouraging genuine connection and fostering division. The system thrives on disconnection, but the poem suggests that by reestablishing these interlinked bonds, individuals can begin to reclaim their agency.

Where do you go when you go within? Within.

Has anyone ever locked you out of a room within? Within.

Where do you go to when you go within? Within.

Where is the place in the world you feel the safest? Within.

Do you have a heart? Within.

Stem.

Did you pick asparagus stems? Stem.

What comes from something else? Stem.

Have you been to the source of a river? Stem.

When's the first time you gave a flower to a girl? Stem.

What did she look like? Stem.

Is it a slang word for person's legs? Stem.

Have you planted things in the ground? Stem.

Have you ever been in a legal battle? Stem.

Within one stem.

Dreadfully.

Is that an old fashioned word? Dreadfully.

Did you ever want to live in the nineteenth century? Dreadfully.

What's it like to be filled with dread? Dreadfully.

Do you think you could find out all the answers to all the questions? Dreadfully.

Distinct.

How good are your eyes? Distinct.

Do you have a particular personality? Distinct.

What separates somebody from somebody else? Distinct.

Who do you admire most in the world? Distinct.

What was your most shameful moment? Distinct.

Dreadfully distinct.

Dreadfully Distinct: The Isolation and Alienation of Modernity

The phrase “dreadfully distinct” captures the loneliness and isolation imposed by modern systems of control. “What separates somebody from somebody else? Distinct.” Under capitalism, individuals are encouraged to view themselves as competitors, isolated from one another in the pursuit of success. This resonates with the essay’s argument about how capitalism atomizes individuals, reinforcing divisions through hierarchies of power, wealth, and identity.

The poem’s questioning of darkness—“Do you have dark thoughts? Dark. Did they program you to have dark thoughts?”—further emphasizes how systems of control manipulate individuals’ inner worlds. The essay’s discussion of trauma-based brainwashing speaks to this manipulation, as individuals are conditioned to internalize the darkness of the system—whether through fear, shame, or guilt. The poem’s exploration of dark thoughts is not merely a reflection of personal angst but a systemic imposition, designed to keep individuals from challenging the structures of power that confine them.

The repetition of “dark” suggests that these thoughts are not natural but are programmed into individuals by the system itself. “Did they program you to have dark thoughts? Dark.” This directly aligns with the essay’s discussion of how propaganda and systemic fear perpetuate cycles of oppression. The system fosters these dark thoughts to maintain control, keeping individuals isolated, afraid, and compliant.

Dark.

Were you afraid of the dark whan you were little? Dark.

What's it like to hide under a bed? Dark.

Did they keep you in a drawer when they were building you? Dark.

Was it dark in there? Dark.

Do you have dark thoughts? Dark.

Did they program you to have dark thoughts? Dark.

Do you think it's some kind of corruption these dark thoughts? Dark.

Maybe it's a spot of rust or something? Dark.

Who's the darkest person you know? Dark.

What is it like when someone gives you the silent treatment. Dark.

Who did you get your darkness from? Dark.

Against the dark.

What kind of power do you have against the dark. Against the dark.

Do you think there is such a thing as evil? Against the dark.

Do you think you can protect people against the dark. Against the dark.

Why are these things happening? Against the dark.

Do you prefer the day or the night? Against the dark.

When is the last time you saw a starry sky? Against the dark.

What's your favorite part of the moon? Against the dark.

Against the Dark: The Possibility of Resistance

The poem, despite its focus on systemic control and alienation, leaves room for hope and resistance. “Against the dark” becomes a declaration of defiance, a challenge to the forces that seek to imprison and control. The poem asks, “Do you think you can protect people against the dark?” This echoes the essay’s call for collective action and resistance, suggesting that by standing together—by becoming interlinked—individuals can fight back against the systems that oppress them.

The essay’s discussion of learning from indigenous cultures, which have maintained a connection to the natural order and resisted the dehumanizing forces of capitalism, aligns with the poem’s subtle suggestion that resistance is possible. The question, “What kind of power do you have against the dark?” invites us to consider the ways in which we can reclaim our power and agency in the face of overwhelming darkness.

Fountain.

Have you seen the Trevi fountain in Rome? Fountain.

Have you ever seen the fountain in Lincoln center? Fountain.

Have you seen fountains out in the wild? Fountain.

What's it like when you have an orgasm. Fountain.

Have you read the Fountainhead? Fountain.

White Fountain.

Is it pure white? White Fountain.

Is that a metaphor? White Fountain.

How did the white Fountain make you feel? White Fountain.

A tall white fountain played.

When you were little did you ever fall into a Fountain? A Tall White Fountain.

Do you like fire, earth, air or water. A Tall White Fountain.

Do you like skipping around in the water? A Tall White Fountain.

A blood black nothingness.

A system of cells.

Within cells interlinked.

Within one stem.

And dreadfully distinct.

Against the dark.

A tall white fountain played.

Conclusion: Within Cells Interlinked, Against the Dark

The poem and the essay are both meditations on the pervasive systems of control that govern modern life. They explore how individuals are confined within cells—whether literal or metaphorical—yet they also suggest that resistance is possible through connection, defiance, and collective action. The poem’s repetition of “system,” “cells,” and “dark” serves as a powerful reminder of the forces that seek to isolate and control, while its exploration of interlinked hearts and dreams points toward a path of resistance.

Ultimately, both the poem and the essay argue that individuals are not powerless. While the system may be vast and overwhelming, there is always the possibility of standing “against the dark,” of breaking free from the cells that confine us, and of reclaiming our humanity through connection and solidarity.

In this web of cells, interlinked and spinning, we are both creators and subjects of the system. Each of us, in our own way, feeds into its mechanisms, sustaining the very structures that bind us. The poem brings us face to face with this unsettling truth, forcing us to ask: what does it feel like to be part of the system? Is there a pleasure in compliance? Security in submission? Do we even dare to resist?

The poem’s relentless repetition, the hammering of “system,” “cells,” and “interlinked,” speaks to a profound entrapment. Our identities, choices, and even emotions are shaped by the system, yet we rarely pause to question its grip on our lives. We exist within cells, some literal—prisons, institutions, cubicles—and some metaphorical, the invisible cages of societal expectations and economic chains. We are taught to love the system, to seek comfort in its structure, to measure our worth by how well we fit within its walls.

And yet, the power within the system does not belong to us. It rests in the hands of those who manipulate its levers, those who understand how to use its architecture to perpetuate control. The elite—the billionaires, the media moguls, the corporate kings—stand at the center of this vast, interlinked network, reinforcing a world where we are all both consumers and the consumed. They profit from our complicity, from the dreams we are taught to dream, the desires we are molded to feel.

This recognition doesn’t absolve us. In fact, it places a greater burden on us to act. The system thrives on our passivity, on our willingness to accept the reality it presents. It thrives when we mindlessly scroll, endlessly consume, and allow our aspirations to be dictated by algorithms. But we are not powerless. The cracks in the system are there, waiting to be pried open by those who choose to see beyond the walls of their cells.

To break free, we must first become aware—aware of the dark forces at play, aware of the ways in which our lives are “within cells interlinked.” Only through this awareness can we begin to resist the siren call of the system and reclaim our agency. The question is no longer simply what it feels like to be part of the system, but whether we will continue to allow the system to define us, or whether we will find the strength to disrupt its hold.

In this dance between power and submission, between compliance and rebellion, the ultimate choice lies with us. Will we be content to remain “within one stem,” or will we strive to grow beyond it, against the dark forces that seek to contain us?

[jgollifermajortwo2021]

Artistic Research: Vampiric Representation

I am definitely still keen on this initial idea of a vampire film with a modern twist, In a conversation with my friend we talked about the historical representations of vampires and also the modern representations. I was really interested to see how Vampires have been represented through the years and what I could represent them as in my own work. 

BUFFY (2000+)

Buffy, The Vampire Slayer. the 1st season was about using vampires and other super natural events to represent parts of teenage experience. You can see what vampires used to represent, sexual desirers. A vampire could be used to represent something much more transgressive and interesting

CRONOS (1993)

Cronos was a film recommended to me by a friend, it is a Spanish film which I was interested in because of the way in which it managed to be a very gothic throw back to the 30’s Dracula. It utilities candle light extremely well and manages to film a way to be very disturbing but also incredibly fascinating at the same time.

The apparatus portrays a different mechanical Vampire, unique to the film and classic of the director, Guillermo de Toro’s style. This fuses an old history with modernity, An archaic world, seeping in through the cracks of the modern world. The Cronos device is not just a machine but contains a real bug

The film is set in a set in a contemporary globalised Mexico City, containing a hybrid of hispanic cultures, protagonists relationship with his daughter is the emotional heartbeat of the film. We watch him struggle with the graphic and violent transition into a vampire. 

It’s a film that reflects the nightmares of rapid urbanisation capturing the parasitic nature of capitalism, represented by the antagonists of the film who are richer more business oriented characters in-search for selfish, monetary and eternal gain. Capitalism is in turn presented as a nightmare for those who live in peace in mexico city, with Ron Pearlmans boisterous character dressed in a tailored suit entering Federico Luppi quite antique shop disturbing his families peace. Presenting the exploitation of Mexico/Mexicans in a new capitalist world – in relation to the US.

Its is interesting because it is a post-modern pastiche. Its narrative simulates the compression of differing temporalities as the vampire is both ancient and modern.

ÍNTIMO TERROR (1990)

Intimo Terror is a Mexican film also set in Mexico City displaying it as a megalopolis highlighting the attitude around global capitalism, especially around the 1985 earthquake. The antiques are presented as portals into other realms/world with Mexico City as the rural exodus following the Revolution.

Real contextual events play a large role in the film, as massive urban sprawl and associated problems caused the social and physical collapse of infrastructure and the demolition and reconstruction – hyper-investment and crashes.

Although the earthquake is real, it becomes a symbolic and metaphoric source of trauma with urban catastrophe infusing the nightmares. The earthquake as a trauma is not processed collectively or personally, thus the is nightmares associated with the disruption of representation and the film is the nightmare the nightmare is the film

Dolls Mannequins

Mannequins as suggestions for the ways in which human beings can become autonoma with the alienation of modern life. They are lifeless – humans reduced to dolls: they suffer mutilation – armless, legless

Dolls are presented in the film as an inanimate figure, a double like a cadaver. Almost reducing the human body into a thing. Dolls in the film are both disturbing and attractive, representing the double. 

Gender plays a large role in the film additionally, with Luisa’s failure to write her novel representing her entrapment in the patriarchal narrative. Additionally with no child she has failed to perform the domestic role her husband and society expects of her. 

Again capitalism makes an attempts to repress the history of the city, displaying the destructive nature of capitalism. With the city built upon layers of the dead the repressed attempts to take over the present due to undealt trauma. THe modern city is presented as a machine that processes living bodies to be used as capitalist commodities. The city produces literal and metaphorical death.

[leonaesque]

Poetic Injustice: On Ateneo and Negotiating Complicity

To be a successful comprador is an art. Tony Tan Caktiong knows this. Given the scale at which multinational corporations influence Philippine culture, at this point, who are we to refute it? And how? Profit-seeking forces itself on us; to be recognized. Every mass-produced item of clothing featuring the pattern of an ever-smiling billion-dollar bee is indication enough: Art is execution. In fact, being the recipient of foreign capital requires deliberate hands able to maintain thousands upon thousands of labor-only contractual workers, despite their having worked at the same establishment for years on end. These workers produce what no middleman can. Yet a company will still view being bought-out by an industry giant as the ideal exit strategy. Each moving part makes for one striking image of monopoly– worthy, one might insist, of being featured in a gallery.

Jollibee Foods Corporations (JFC) acquires stakes or ownership of restaurant chains in order to expand, as it has done over the course of many years with local and foreign brands. Their current roster includes Greenwich, Chowking, Red Ribbon, Mang Inasal, Burger King PH, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and Panda Express PH. The company also runs businesses internationally, such as Smashburgers in the United States, and Yonghe Dawang or Yonghe King in China.[1] Of course, the face of this massive undertaking remains the once tiny Magnolia-inspired ice cream store, Jollibee, now every business-oriented insect’s wet dream.

Ernesto Tanmiantong, brother and successor of Tony Tan Caktiong as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Jollibee Foods Corporation, is the latest former Chairperson of the Ateneo de Manila University Board of Trustees.[2] One can even find his name, along with his wife’s, gracing a first-floor exhibit hall of the Ateneo Art Gallery, found inside the university’s so-called creative hub, the Arete. In the months before the start of the first semester of S.Y. 2018-2019, Tanmiantong’s adorable, marketing-committee-approved buddy in white gloves and a chef’s hat took a trip to the then-newly inaugurated art gallery for a photo-op. The mascot then posed with several installments and paintings, a couple of which depicted farmers and workers.

According to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), JFC is one of the most notorious businesses with regards to the perpetuation of the practice of contractualization.[3] Contractual workers are, according to law, not employed by– and, therefore, not the responsibility of– the company they provide labor to. Because of this, these workers do not receive benefits or compensation, are often subject to abusive working conditions, and are vulnerable to the shameless practice of mass termination. No doubt, the Public Relations stunt with the Ateneo Art Gallery was ill-timed; right at the height of protests against the corporation, in the midst of its non-compliance with the DOLE’s order to regularize upwards of 6,000 of its workers– there was Jollibee: tone-deaf and taking pictures to post on his Facebook profile, The Atenean Way.  

Ironically, as the statement by Ateneo’s School of Humanities Sanggunian (which condemned the incident) pointed out, perhaps even the person inside that oversized blinking head of the Jollibee mascot was a contractual worker, posing in a space that he might never have been able to enter without the cartoon-bee-mask of his exploitation.[4] Surely, it does not matter whether or not the institutional faux pas was an intentional case of art-washing. At least, it should not. Is there such a thing as art for art for art’s sake?

---

There is this poem entitled “The Doomed” written by Mikael De Lara Co. A friend of mine recommended it to me once after a workshop session because my piece, he said, reminded him of it. I do not think my friend meant to insult me. Unless he did.

“The Doomed” is a poem about writing a poem, wherein the poet-persona is aware that, while he is writing poems about lilies, there is violence somewhere, which he is both physically and socially detached from. This violence is manifest into the shooting of Liberal Party supporter and candidate, Hamira Agcong, in 2010, as well as the infamous Ampatuan Massacre that occurred in 2009, where 58 people were kidnapped and killed.  

Where do poems fall under in the realm of social praxis (if at all)? “The Doomed” ends with the lines “I want to find beauty in suffering. / I want to fail.” Yet, the poem’s aestheticization of the murders via tone and imagery is blatant. The declarative rejection of an ideal like beauty or portraying beauty betrays the poet’s pretentiousness in what can only be his underlying conservativity. There is no attempt to avoid it. With lines like “You sit at your desk / to write a poem about lilies and a clip of 9mm’s / is emptied into the chest of a mother…” and “… a backhoe in Ampatuan crushes the spines of 57 / – I am trying to find another word for bodies”, it sounds as though these killings are more poetic material than actual, politically motivated deaths. Tell me, is the reader to blame for reading what is on the page? Mikael De Lara Co fails in failing, making the poem and its project a useless endeavor.

Despite the pointedly crafted grief into the persona’s voice, “The Doomed” does nothing to grieve the circumstances which brings about its dramatic situation. Why are people “doomed”, if not for the bureaucrat capitalists that viciously plot to stay in power? Could the poet not have addressed that, instead of weeping about his writing process? I do not believe that the poem would have failed that, at least, because all language inevitably fails in the face of social reality. That would be lazy, if it were not bullshit.

But I suppose that is why “The Doomed” fails, most of all: The poet believes it is fine to write speeches for a leader who allowed farmers and indigenous people to be harassed, as long as they could be tagged as members of the New People’s Army, the armed faction of the Communist Party of the Philippines. A text speaks, though the words are not on the page. So, the poet dooms.

Mikael De Lara Co has won many awards for his writing and translations, including the prestige-inducing Don Carlos Palanca Award for Literature. He graduated BS Environmental Science from Ateneo de Manila University, where he was once an editor of Heights, the school’s official literary publication. He has been published in many other magazines, literary journals, and the like, where his author’s notes proudly indicate all these accomplishments and more, such as having, himself, worked for the Liberal Party and once been a member of the former President Benigno Aquino III’s staff under the Presidential Communications Operations Office. Ergo, ghostwriter, alongside a number of other Ateneans who were also once part of Heights.

“Noynoy Aquino was a fascist” is a phrase that does not get said often enough. The Aquino administration, with its neoliberal policies the color of dehydrated piss, is credited with the starving thousands of farmers to death. Unsurprising, I suppose, for a family of landlords to inherit a disdain for the very hands that feed them. Corazon Cojuanco Aquino passed the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) during her regime, and her son amended it with an extension and reforms (CARPer), making it even easier for land owners not to have to redistribute their lands at all.

For all its “Kayo ang boss ko” and “Daang Matuwid” pandering, the Aquino administration did not skimp on its counterinsurgency program, Oplan Bayanihan, which heavily drew from the U.S. Counterinsurgency Guide.[5] Here, it was farmers and Lumad, some of the most vulnerable sectors of Philippine society, that were tagged as rebels, terrorists, communists, etc., simply for knowing and standing for their rights, as the government failed to decimate actual armed revolutionaries in the countryside.

The massacre that took place under the Aquino administration occurred in Kidapawan, Cotabato on April 1, 2016. According to reports, among the group of 6,000 protesters that was mainly composed of farmers and activists, 116 were injured, 87 went missing, and 3 were killed.[6] Perhaps the lilies in “The Doomed” were a metaphor for De Lara Co’s beloved Noynoy.

---

Speaking of Ateneo: For an institution that makes yearly claims to combat historical revisionism and uphold the memory of the victims of human rights violations under the Martial Law era, this university loves to slurp on major Marcos ass. In 2014, President Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ drew flack for having rubbed elbows with the iron butterfly herself, Imelda Marcos, at an Ateneo scholars’ benefactors’ event.[7] The mere thought of Imelda posing as a charitable, bloated cockroach in a wig that feasts on all that is lavish and garish, while the university welcomes her to do so is nearly comical. I imagine the blood.  

In 2019, a similar incident ensued[8], this time with Imelda’s daughter, Irene, whose art connoisseur lifestyle she lives second-hand. It was during the inauguration of the Arete’s amphitheater, named after Ignacio B. Jimenez, a crony of the corrupt family themselves.[9] Community backlash forced the building’s executive director, Yael Buencamino, to resign and for University President, Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ to issue a statement in response to the instance.

Yet, despite the triumph of Ateneans in demanding accountability for having the Marcoses at our literal and metaphorical dining table, there are also the Camposes, the Consunjis, the Lorenzos, and other local elite whose hands are stained with generational blood, that have established their presence in the campus with no near hopes of showing them out. Students could also be as loud as they pleased about the violations on workers’, farmers’, and national minorities’ rights that these families are frequently attached to, with only the answer of a warning that school organizations may lose sponsorship opportunities. What else can we expect? Of course, the names that line the halls that one studies in are the limits of academic freedom.

---

A few semesters ago, I wrote a poem to be workshopped by my co-English staffers in Heights as part of our membership retention requirements. It was not a good poem, I know. It was about my experience of integrating with the striking workers of Sumifru, a multinational Japanese company that produces fruit, whose union was called NAMASUFA (Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa Suyapa Farm). After struggling to get word out of their plight and facing violent dispersals and harassment, 200 workers came all the way from Compostela Valley to Metro Manila via boat and plane, despite the difficulties of travel due to the imposition of Martial Law throughout Mindanao. Their objective was to pressure the DOLE and its Secretary, Silvestre Bello III, into action; that is, to be firm in enforcing Sumifru’s compliance to regularize their workers, which the company refused to do even though the DOLE had legally recognized them as their workers’ employer. The workers set up camp in various places, such as Mendiola, Liwasang Bonifacio, and beside the Commission on Human Rights inside the University of the Philippines Diliman campus, and often welcomed students who came to learn about their cause.  

During the workshop, the discussion began with a silence and an awkward laugh. Political realism was how my poem was diagnosed, for obvious reasons. However, the main critique that I remember was that my use of language– the words multinational corporation and bureaucrat capitalists, in particular– did not induce the feeling of the struggle that the workers went through. It was not the language workers used or would use. I refuted this claim, saying I had talked to the workers. That this is exactly what they say. No, it is not poetic. It is real.

I agree, though, with the verdict that my poem was not good, if the basis were form. I agree because I do not think poems need to be good to say what is needed. If the basis were factors other than form, I still do not think the poem is good. I mean, either way, it does not change the fact that, ultimately, I only wrote a poem for a workshop, despite any intention of bringing awareness to NAMASUFA. Is a poem going to save them their jobs? Does that make a difference? Did it make a difference?

The Sumifru workers returned to Mindanao last July, 2019. I have left Heights as well.

---

Within the Ateneo campus, a tarpaulin overlooks the red brick road that the entire Loyola Schools population traverses. The sign merits a purposeful, impossible-to-miss position on the old Rizal Library building, immortalizing the critique: “We find the Ateneo today irrelevant to the Philippine situation because it can do no more than to service the power elite.” Nothing could be more fitting, in my opinion. The Ateneo de Manila University’s commitment to performativity deserves to be blasted in our faces, if at least once a day.

This declaration was taken from the “Down from the Hill” manifesto published by The Guidon in November of 1968. The manifesto was written by a group of five students, namely Jose Luis Alcuaz, Gerardo Esguerra, Emmanuel Lacaba, Leonardo Montemayor and Alfredo Salanga, all of whom actively campaigned for an anti-imperialist orientation to nationalism.

I want to talk about Eman Lacaba. Throughout the Marcos regime, he was a student activist– a radical, so to speak, as disapproving administrative bodies might now label him. Presently, he is known for being a poet, revolutionary, guerilla, and a martyr during the Martial Law era. One of his most often discussed poems is “An Open Letter to Filipino Artists”, a piece that finds itself into syllabi like a de-fanged snake. The poem is a detailing of his experience as a cadre of the New People’s Army; the provinces he visits, his process of proletarianizing from a burgis boy to a communist rebel, and so forth. The epigraph of the work, a quote from Ho Chi Minh, affirms his praxis– “A poet must learn how to lead an attack.” The poem is the revolution that Lacaba takes up arms for. I guess now that he is dead, Ateneans can wholeheartedly claim him as one of their own.  

After the Martial Law era, Ateneo decided to create a body dedicated to the integration of its students with various disenfranchised sectors of society, as encouragement for their middle to upper-middle class youth to become more socially aware and active. The Office of Social Concern and Involvement (OSCI) is the current iteration of this. Their programs, from first year to fourth, require students to be socially involved enough to pass their Theology units. Commendable, no? Still. You can almost get sanctioned for so much as lighting candles for state-murdered farmers on the sidewalk by the gates outside of campus if it is not an Office of Student Activities-approved event– something I learned the hard way. I was not aware that bureaucracy was a key principle in Catholic Social Teaching.

So, does this mean the opposite of active non-violence is that which is inactively violent? The areas that OSCI allows their students to immerse in are carefully chosen, the interactions are prepared for in advance. In fact, they do not want to use the term “immerse” lest they be misconstrued with the damn leftists that climb mountains and “brainwash” unsuspecting poor people. You know, the ones that dare challenge the status-quo? Ateneo, or at the very least, its administration, will recognize the necessity of political action, but only to a certain extent. Nothing like Eman, the warrior-poet, whose militance is much too red to aestheticize.

The contradiction between what is said (marketed, poeticized, apologized for, etc.) and what is done should be scrutinized, instead of convincing ourselves that our interests are not merely our own. The dominant culture of a society will expose who supports those who hold political and economic power.  

[1] Cigaral (List: Brands operated by Jollibee Foods Corp.)

[2] (Leadership)

[3] Patinio (Jollibee tops list of firms engaged in labor-only contracting: DOLE)

[4] SOH Sanggunian (The Statement of the SOH Sanggunian on Jollibee's PR Stunt)

[5] Karapatan (OPLAN BAYANIHAN For Beginners)

[6] Caparas (WITH VIDEOS: 3 dead, 87 missing, 116 hurt as police fire on Cotabato human barricade)

[7] Francisco (Ateneo de Manila 'sorry' over Imelda's visit)

[8] Paris (Irene Marcos was invited to Ateneo, and students are up in arms)

[9] Rappler.com (Ateneo hit for art ampitheater named after Marcos 'dummy')

Works Cited

Caparas, Jeff. “WITH VIDEOS: 3 Dead, 87 Missing, 116 Hurt as Police Fire on Cotabato Human Barricade.” InterAksyon.com, 1 Apr. 2016, web.archive.org/web/20160402013745/interaksyon.com/article/125901/breaking--security-forces-open-fire-on-cotabato-human-barricade.

Cigaral, Ian Nicolas. “List: Brands Operated by Jollibee Foods Corp.” Philstar.com, The Philippine Star, 24 July 2019, www.philstar.com/business/2019/07/24/1937490/list-brands-operated-jollibee-foods-corp.

Francisco, Katerina. “Ateneo De Manila 'Sorry' over Imelda's Visit.” Rappler, 6 July 2014, www.rappler.com/nation/62549-ateneo-manila-imelda-marcos-apology.

Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights). OPLAN BAYANIHAN For Beginners, Karapatan, 2011.

“Leadership.” Leadership | Ateneo Global, global.ateneo.edu/about/leadership.

Paris, Janella. “Irene Marcos Was Invited to Ateneo, and Students Are up in Arms.” Rappler, 8 Apr. 2019, www.rappler.com/nation/227702-irene-marcos-invited-to-ateneo-students-protest-april-2019.

Patinio, Ferdinand. “Jollibee Tops List of Firms Engaged in Labor-Only Contracting: DOLE.” Philippine News Agency RSS, Philippine News Agency, 28 May 2018, www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1036679.

Rappler.com. “Ateneo Hit for Art Ampitheater Named after Marcos 'Dummy'.” Rappler, 21 Apr. 2019, www.rappler.com/nation/228633-ateneo-ignacio-gimenez-ampitheater-marcos-dummy.

“SOH Sanggunian.” SOH Sanggunian - The Statement of the SOH Sanggunian on..., 2 July 2018, www.facebook.com/sohsanggu/photos/a.157891440898864/1893103380710986/?type=3.

[the-invisible-self]

I copied the text of this article below for anyone who is unable to read it behind the content blocker:

Summary: In the second season of Netflix’s series The OA, its creators question the relentless technological progress of our time, but the result is somewhat scattered.

The OA

Article by Sanja Grozdanic

In early 2017, soon after the release of the first season of The OA, its co-creator Brit Marling spoke at length with her friend Malcolm Gladwell about the series for Interview magazine. During the conversation, Gladwell asked Marling why she is so drawn to fantasy and speculative science fiction, both as a writer and an actor. These genres, she explained, best reflect her view of the world and the deep mythology she naturally invests in everyday moments and objects.

“I think I need to believe in that version of reality because I get very scared when I don’t,” she said. “I feel very alone when I don’t feel that.”

Social isolation, technological domination and the profound discontent of a generation are all explored by The OA, a series that positions itself against the exploitation demanded by capitalism and is strung together by a storyline dense with time travel. Understandably, it has divided audiences. It has been called “absolutely insane”, “batshit” and “brilliant” – and yet has also gained a cult following and brought into focus a desire for the construction of new narratives and mythologies.

As Marling told Gladwell, “The OA is our attempt at writing and making a new human language through movement, this mythology we’re inventing.”

The series began its first season with Prairie Johnson (Marling), a woman missing for seven years who is rescued following an ostensible suicide attempt. Prairie was once blind – now she can see. She will not reveal to her family how she gained her sight, nor tell them what happened to her. She denies she was trying to kill herself, insisting she was only trying to “go back”. To where is the central mystery of the show’s first season, tagged as Part I, slowly revealed over eight episodes.

As the first season unfurled itself, I understood The OA to be an extended metaphor for post-traumatic stress disorder. In another life, in another dimension, Prairie is held captive by the show’s central villain, Dr Hap (Jason Isaacs), a scientist obsessed with near-death experiences and the power they bestow on survivors. Prairie, I believed, constructed her captivity as a trauma response – a hyper-fantasy of good versus evil, which allowed her to regain a sense of control.

The show’s perplexing narrative structure echoed a survivor’s frenzied mental state, a reading of existential crisis that I liked. When mental illness is feminised, it is often depicted as tepid and lifeless. But The OA gave weight to Prairie’s somatic condition, depicting it not so much as a defect but as a lifeline; a way to give form to what she cannot say. “Madness as a defense against terror. Madness as a defense against grief”, as Susan Sontag described it. One cannot live in such a world, but its genesis is all too human.

Part II of The OA proved my reading entirely incorrect.

In this season, the series relocates from North Carolina to San Francisco, California. It feels a fitting evolution in many ways – from the margins to the centre of technocapitalism.

In San Francisco, Prairie awakens in the body of Nina Azarova – a Russian heiress who lives in a penthouse, dresses in Gucci and is engaged to a tech billionaire named Pierre Ruskin. She has no memory of this life of material excess, but no one from her former life – of Prairie, the blind orphan – remembers her. Concerned for her welfare, a psychologist sends Nina to a facility on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay for a 14-day psychiatric hold.

At the same time, elsewhere in the city, private investigator Karim Washington (Kingsley Ben-Adir) is hired by an elderly Vietnamese woman searching for her missing granddaughter, Michelle. Michelle disappeared after winning thousands of dollars playing an app, which seems to alienate and consume its users, while tempting them with the possibility of vast riches.

Following Karim’s attempts to trace the app back to its creator, the series starts to question the ethics underlying the startling decadence and terminal decline of the Silicon Valley social order. Karim discusses the app with a tech worker who suggests crowd-sourcing is nothing more than a euphemism for free labour. “What, erase the boundary between work and play, hide your sweatshop in the cloud?” he asks her. “Exactly,” she replies.

Who will protect those most vulnerable, like Michelle, in this rigged game? How are we compromised when our most intimate, private desires are mined as data? In a sprawling converted factory, Karim finds young women held in a literal dream farm, an attempt by a tech billionaire to instrumentalise the social unconscious in a search for the secret to time travel. A dystopia perhaps not radically removed from our present.

But amid all these subplots, the point is scattered, lost between too many narrative arcs. The choice to be so laser-focused on Marling’s character feels like a misstep – particularly while the profound discontent of this season’s younger characters seems far more urgent and vital than Nina’s struggle. Those characters are sidelined. Instead, the series insists upon a love story that has long since lost its romance or intrigue. Karim, too, is denied sufficient screen time and character development.

It is clear The OA is attempting to tap into something deeper. A renewed interest in the exploration of multiple dimensions and realities, including the series’ Netflix stablemates Russian Doll and Stranger Things, suggests a general recognition of a profound cultural lack. Suspended over a void, we face several conflicting futures. History repeats itself endlessly – infinite parallel worlds with interchangeable players.

Pierre Ruskin could be Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor long dogged by rumours he wants to inject himself with the blood of young people to stave off the effects of ageing. In another, more socially minded dimension, he could have been Alexander Bogdanov – the Soviet physician, philosopher and science fiction writer who also had an interest in what blood transfusion could do, but from a communist, rather than hyper-capitalist, perspective.

The 19th century defined the idea of progress as an infinite and irreversible improvement; the Hegelian idea of cumulative progress. Indeed, the myth of progress has been the West’s ruling ideology. But for downwardly mobile millennials facing social collapse, environmental catastrophe and unprecedented species extinction, this narrative has lost its primacy, or indeed its validity.

In the final episode of Part II, detective Karim saves one of the app’s users, but in doing so only manages to seem moralising and out of touch. Though addicted to the physically invasive, impossible game that inherently negates social life, the millennial doesn’t want to be saved. Remorseless and defiant, they see no future in the present Karim offers.

With this season, Marling and her co-creator, Zal Batmanglij, show themselves to be genuinely interested in moving The OA beyond emotional landscapes to the structural conditions fomenting this discontent. As Batmanglij explained, the pair sought to make “a gangster movie without the gangsters, because it’s the idea that it’s not just killing one bad guy or two bad guys, but it’s a whole city is to blame”.

But the question remains whether a show commissioned by Netflix – a company now worth more than Microsoft founder Bill Gates and only slightly less than Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos – can ever honestly critique our present moment, shaped by the dominance of the tech giants. A successful Netflix product can be judged by its compulsive consumption; how quickly do viewers watch a season? “At Netflix, we are competing for our customers’ time, so our competitors include Snapchat, YouTube, sleep, et cetera,” said Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings. Where profit was once maximised with families and romantic comedies, in our moment of precarity it is apocalypse that is commercially seductive.

[alexsbrain]

Victim (1961)

    A commercial film done in the style of a thriller about a blackmail ring targeting homosexual men. No, it’s not the latest film at Cannes, it’s an English film from the sixties. Victim was made at a time when the physical love between two same-sex partners was punishable by law. By the late fifties many politicians and activists were questioning this law and fighting for decriminalization. Victim is a product of the nascent Queer rights movement in post-war England and the dramatic personification of the Wolfenden report which urged lawmakers to decriminalize homosexuality. Starring Dirk Bogarde, a gay actor and England’s favourite matinee idol, Victim not only transformed his career but helped sway public opinion, which resulted in the passing of the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 effectively decriminalizing homosexuality. The film would receive criticism upon it release and throughout the years, yet it remains the first English language film to openly portray the terror of being Queer.

Barrett on the run

    The film begins with a man on the run. Jack Barret has stolen thousands of pounds from his firm and the police are closing in. On the run ‘Boy Barrett’ contacts his friends in an effort to elicit help or find temporary lodging. He continually contacts the barrister Melville Farr, who refuses to help him. While hiding in a road house café  the police nab him in a men’s lavatory trying to flush pages from his scrap book. At the police station the two detectives spell out the trouble, they believe Barret is being blackmailed because he is gay. When the police piece together his scrap book they find articles about the famous barrister Farr. As Farr arrives at the station he is told Barret has hanged himself. Panic sets in, Farr and Barret had been involved. As Farr returns home his wife senses his anguish but he shrugs it off, not wishing to tell her about his double life. Meanwhile the black mailers are starting to get greedy, demanding larger amounts of money from their victims and start setting their sights on Farr. Farr is determined to find the black mailers and put an end to their tyranny, even if it means fighting against those who want to remain in the closet and at the cost of his reputation.

    After the war there was a new sense of creative freedom in Europe, a cultural explosion in every artistic medium. European cinema was in a position to tackle themes and subjects considered too risqué for puritan American audiences. England’s penchant for theater positioned itself for the first English language post-war take on Queer rights. Unable to compete financially with the American industrial movie machine (Hollywood), England could instead craft films of high quality and a progressive social agenda.

    Victim is a product of the post war cultural boom, it’s not only an important film socially, it is also a well-crafted piece of cinema. Its use of film language is daft, and it never feels awkward or shoddy, a testament to the technical proficiencies of the English film industry. After modest success with a similarly progressive film, Sapphire, the crew reunited for Victim. With a script penned by Janet Green and John McCormick, the husband and wife writing team, director Basil Rearden and producer Michael Relph of Allied Film Makers started preproduction on Victim then entitled Boy Barrett. John Trevelyan of the BBFC (British Board of Film Censors) had several notes on the touchy subject. The BBFC’s role was not to asses a films commercial potential, only it’s content and even though, “to the great majority of cinema-goers homosexuality is outside their direct experience and is something that is shocking, distasteful and disgusting,” but since homosexuality was not forbidden by the board, unlike in America, and “the story was told with sympathy and compassion,” they were granted a seal with little reservation.  

“You knew of course that Barrett was a homosexual.”

    After several actors turned down the main role of Farr, for various reasons not all of which were legitimate, Dearden approached Bogarde in December of 1960 and he jumped at the chance to play the closeted barrister. Principal photography commenced on January 30th, 1961 to little fan-fare nor protest. Despite its controversial subject matter the film would wrap without much incident from the public or press.

    Some criticism of the film surrounds the restrained ‘tact’ which was used to tell the story. Today it can seem old fashioned or too subtle, yet the filmmakers knew that with such a racy subject matter limits had to be enforced to ensure the films success. Instead they cleverly disguised Victim as a thriller, the opening scenes invoke a Hitchcockian sense of danger, a panic-stricken suffocation as the police close in on Barrett. By using a well-known genre, known for it’s riveting audience response, the film could then tell a story which otherwise might have seemed too daring for cinema-goers. By introducing the familiar clichés of suspense, a man on the run and detectives, Victim can make audiences feel comfortable while introducing characters that in other terms might seem revolting. The compassion evoked from the viewer is one of the films strengths.

  Farr’s wife right before the confession

   The pivotal scene of film is when Farr confesses to his wife. It is a scene of great cinematic staging and blazing performance. After entering the parlor Farr’s wife demands he tell her the truth. Standing in the dark, she watches Farr walkover and turn on a light as her tells her about his ‘sordid’ double life. Unable to fully comprehend vague answers she pushes him for the truth, asking him if he loved Barrett like a man loves a woman, resulting in the famous dialogue delivered by Bogarde.

Quiet a scandalous admission for the early sixties. Bogarde thought of this film as incredibly personal, and it is one of his best performance which was responsible for transforming his career into the heavy avant-garde powerhouse he is known as today. In the opening scenes Barret calls Farr repeatedly. Farr answers the phone at his desk and tells Barrett he cannot help him then hangs up. Bogarde’s hand has a soft daintiness in the wrist while hanging up, this subtlety of gesture speaks volumes, at this moment the audience realizes that Farr is gay. It’s one of those brilliant moments for an actor where body language and staging reveal more than any line of dialogue could.

The compassionate detectives

    Several characters in the film represent the various levels and dichotomies of English society. The two main detectives in the story serve as a metaphor for the civil servant middle class. The lead detective displays remorse at Queer men’s predicament, even turning around his younger detective by paralleling puritan prosecution with homosexual persecution. They foreshadow the gradual, albeit lengthy, acceptance of the middle class of gay rights.

The common bartender 

   The bartender in the local pub serves his Queer patrons but is secretly disgusted by them. A female patron scolds him for his views, yet the bartender serves as a representation of the less educated working-class attitudes, or the mercantile class. They are more skeptical of homosexuals yet will still take their money.

The closeted elitists

    There are several Queer characters in the film who try to stop Farr from foiling the blackmailers. It is an analogy to those who wish to stay in the closet, usually wealthier men of the ruling class who do not want to risk losing their inheritance, or public standing, and will gladly live a double life, paying the blackmailers because they can afford to as it is preferable than living a public life of shame. These characters are portrayed unsympathetically and serve as juxtaposition to Farr’s noble outward attempts to right a wrong.

An unwelcome guest

    The female characters are split between disgust and acceptance. The girlfriend of one of Barret’s school chums is revolted by Barret and will not allow him to stay at their house while he is on the run. The lead blackmailer is also female, she too is revolted by homosexuals and enterprisingly exploits their wicked sins to her capitalistic advancement. Farr’s wife is surprisingly open to her husband’s sexuality. They share a broader love more akin to the sister brother relationship than man and wife. While the news of her husbands love for Barret shocks her, in the end the bond between the two characters is greater than sexual identity. The female pub patron, a model by trade, is open and accepting, in many scenes she is surrounded by Queer men sharing a laugh over a pint or a glass of sherry. He profession in the arts gives her a broader understanding of human desire, even if she is part of the working class.

  The sympathetic model

   Queer cinema has evolved exponentially over the last sixty years, but when Victim was released it was one of the first films to, “start the adult and serious approach to dealing with homosexuality.” Daring for 1961, it was the first English language film to have the word homosexual spoken aloud, and it does not hide behind metaphors or clever symbology. As a young man dealing with his own sexual identity English filmmaker Terence Davies recalled seeing victim in theaters as a teenager, “gay men, who for the first time saw credible representation of themselves and their situations in a commercial British Film.” With social media chattering over the last few years about the subject of representation among minorities and members of the LGBTQ community, filmmakers could take a cue from Victim. The act of including members of society that do not normally have broad representation goes a long way in normalizing those groups not only for themselves but for others as well.  

    One has to commend the makers of Victim, co-star Sylvia Sims called the film and Bogarde “brave,” and “revolutionary,” it gave a voice to a community that was still oppressed. Perhaps the greatest compliment an actor or filmmaker could be paid was found in a note sent to Bogarde. Lord Arran, the man responsible for sponsoring the bill that later became know as the Sexual Offence Act of 1967 in the house of Lords, thanked Bogarde for, “helping to push the public opinion in favour of decriminalization.” Today Victim stands as a fictional testament to some of the struggles faced by the Queer community and serves as a remainder to our history of persecution. Not only is Victim a time capsule, it is also a wonderfully crafted piece of cinema.

[mara-the-cactupus]

[long post ahead - kind of meta, kind of philosophy; I might rewrite this later but feel free to reblog]

Captain America: The Winter Soldier just... resonates with me on some deeper level, like it’s addressing a hidden part of my subconscious. There’s a tension there, something that has existed under pressure for a long time, and sometimes I forget that exists but other times it feels like it’s just bottled up, boiling over, ready to explode.

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I think that’s why I love the main suite by Henry Jackman, the “Captain America” theme: it starts out quiet, gradually building, persistent and at times violent, breaking up into the harsh Winter Soldier theme but always keeping that forwards momentum, building up that the deep, theater-rumbling tones of helicarriers crashing into the sea and ideals shattering like shifting cracks in age-old ice, but also bringing in the higher, almost wistful strains of purity and hope, lone notes rising brightly only to die out slowly – and the human voices at the end, falling with achingly numb rawness.

It’s not an uplifting song, but I wouldn’t call it “sad” either. It feels like the rage and despair that I feel simmering under the surface, all the time, but at the same time each note feels drawn-out, allowed to cry out but then be held, suspended, until it fades away under the cries of other notes amid the ever-pressing underlying percussion. Like screaming into a void, without any of the relief.

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This to me embodies what I love so much about Steve Rogers’ characterization in this film: he is a man out of his time, struggling to adjust to the world around him, and uncertain whether he even belongs there at all.

Before, he had a mission – his whole life in the first movie was dedicated to fighting bullies, becoming a soldier, winning the war. He had ideals, and confidence in his side’s rightness. He had friends.

Coming out of that, and being thrust into the modern era with its high-tech spies and moral complexity, not being able to know for certain that the cause he was fighting for was right, or even respecting of him as an individual and not a pawn – and extending into his personal life, likely not even knowing for certain whether he wanted to continue living in this strange dream-universe of America, isolated from his friends and his sense of identity – that must have caused tremendous mental trauma, and it feels like Steve is still internalizing all of it, still struggling to pick up the pieces and catch up on all of the history and pop culture he’s missed, not really having any time or putting in any effort to make real human connections.

The way he brushes off Nat’s attempts to set him up on a date, the way he can’t trust his own team or his superior, the way he watches Peggy slowly fade away and shies away from Sam’s initial attempts to befriend him – he isn’t really grounded in the world.

He doesn’t have a place.

He seems cool on the outside, but you can hear all of the suppressed rawness at having been ripped out of his world and thrust into a new one through the music of the score.

The Winter Soldier’s theme is much more visceral, with metal screaming at the violation of his bodily autonomy and sense of humanity, at the state of his mind having been wiped and reprogrammed again and again; but Steve’s theme feels numb, drawn out in agonizing quietness, like the ice he was trapped in hasn’t completely thawed.

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I can empathize with Natasha, as someone watching another person’s struggle from the sidelines, wondering how or even if I can comfort him when I don’t have any of the answers myself. She’s had to come to terms with the nature of her job years before, and understands that the world is too complex to really get attached to a side or hold yourself to a moral standard every time.

I love Sam, who understands this too but chooses to make a difference by building connections with people like Steve, to be better than the system, rather than wallowing in alienation from it.

And I feel that duality of Steve’s numbness and Bucky’s viscerality sharply; they each fight with the instinctual need to survive, to have some sort of autonomy in that moment even though neither of them is really free in their own lives.

That terror that Bucky wears on his face, in his eyes, at not being in control, at being forced to hurt others and do things that he would regret if he could remember them afterwards – the feeling that if he could just remember, there was something important there but it’s floating in and out of view, the tip of an iceberg, and if he gets too close it might gash into his industrially-constructed shell and sink him, drowning under the horror of everything he’s done – although I can’t relate to his physical experiences, that expression of terror embodies the raw mixture of rage, fear, and shame that at times threaten to tear through my conscience, if I spend too much time thinking about the world’s injustices and my role in perpetuating them. I don’t feel in control; the problems are too big.

And even though I’m not actually committing such grave crimes as assassination, sometimes it feels like They are forcing me to drive a knife through the heart of my fellow humans, forcing me to gun down the oppressed people within our society and trigger bombs all over the face of mother earth as I watch from within, trapped inside my own body, not in control.

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The world is filled with Alexander Pierces and Nick Furys. And like Steve, I really don’t know if we can trust either. There’s a law in social science that states that no matter how good-intentioned people are, all leaders or organizations will inevitably become corrupted into preserving their own power over continuing to prioritize the organization’s goals. I don’t know how true that is, but the reality is that the world today scares me, and sometimes it feels like you really can’t trust anyone.

Sometimes it’s hard to see the people around me, and their good values and kind hearts, when the institutions and stratification loom above us like skyscrapers, casting massive shadows. How do we change all of that, within our lifetimes? How can we stop these deep-rooted problems before they destroy us? Is it even possible?

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I feel like Steve’s displacement is a metaphor for my mental shift from childhood to adulthood. As a kid, I had lots of stong-held hopes and ideals about how the world worked. I was caught in that “good-old-days” mentality of Steve’s 1940s, aware of some of the ground-level problems but still confident in the idea that we can win the war, and then come home, and at least that will be a victory.

But being thrust into the reality of today, and not just the recent problems but also the realization that these problems have been happening this whole time – like Hydra, present within the very system I thought was pure – and that the people around me, already adults, are numb to these issues and have moved on in accordance with them... that was soul-crushing.

And I started emulating them, building back the walls of my little bubble, alternating between reading the news and then hiding in a shelter of books and dreams: feeling at one moment like the world is beautiful, the ocean and the sun are beautiful, nothing can crush my unbridled happiness – and then feeling the stress of deadlines and my future looming over me the next, and beginning to unpack the problems in society and realize how they work and how they will continue, reeling with the ideas of a journal article still fresh in my head as I walk into a grocery store and am hit with the sheer amount of plastic, the food waste, the low prices that I know come from exploitation but also the pressure to save money in our capitalist society.

And suddenly the thought of the ocean and the sun feels like a distraction, because the ocean is filling with plastic and chemicals and I need to do something to prevent another oil spill, but I can’t, because They’re too powerful and wealthy and I’m still trying to grapple with student loans – and why am I even worrying about this, when we’re bombing the Middle East and no one knows why because they don’t teach us about that in school, because this is America, because our country is founded on that poisonous combination of individuality and go-go-go accumulation, and the way that you win is to exploit the land and the people and anything else that gets in your way, and we all know that deep down but it’s wrapped in that propaganda that says that hey, maybe I can be one of the winners, and we’ve dominated so much of this planet that I don’t know how any alternate system can hope to overcome.

And it’s just one long, drawn-out scream underlying everything I do. Internalized, numb. Like that rawness has been put on ice, hushed, and a glossed-over version has been put on display in an air-conditioned museum: the facts are glorified and the electricity pollutes, but I’m tired of thinking that way so I just embrace the numb Americana of it all. The carpet is muffling, in a comforting sort of way, and the air is cool and smells faintly of cologne. This is not my world, but it’s the ideal that they present to me. I can see through the veil but at the same time I don’t want to... and so I don’t. Until that underlying rage comes back into the picture, and threatens to boil over, and I feel the shriek of metal all over again.

[informalrevue]

“‘The bee, of course, flies anyway:’ Social Protest and Critique of Global Capitalism in Dreamworks’ Bee Movie”

In his 2011 feature Marx Reloaded, a documentary which uses animation to parody the Matrix series and the 20th century revolutionaries who famously claimed to carry on Marx’s theoretical legacy but who did so with violent means, Jason Barker explains that after the 2008 global financial meltdown and following Great Recession, many economists and philosophers are returning to Marxist critiques of the capitalist market to find ways of reimagining the future so as to prevent another global catastrophe. At its opening, the narrator, voiced by Barker, asks “Is capitalism destroying itself and the wealth of the planet with it” (Barker)? The documentary goes on to explicate Marx’s critiques of capitalism, define contemporary capitalism, and feature contemporary Marxist philosophers as well as detractors of Marxist ideology in finding solutions in the global financial market.

Marx Reloaded was not the first film to use animation in its featuring of Marxist critique. Four years prior to Barker’s film release, at the exact same time as the financial crisis, Dreamworks animation studios released a new comedy featuring the voice talents of Jerry Seinfield, Renée Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, and John Goodman. Bee Movie features two young best bee-friends Barry and Adam who are to be assigned their jobs for the hive after graduation. Barry, contemplating which job to take up for the remainder of his short life, flies away from the hive, meets a woman and discovers humanity is stealing honey and making profit on it. He sues humanity, wins the case, and stages a bee strike but quickly everyone realizes the importance of bees in maintaining the global ecosystem. Finally, after seeing his crush (the woman he met during his first flight away from home) will have to close her flower shop and find income elsewhere without the important job of pollination that bees do, Barry decides bees must end the strike for the sake of camaraderie and because bees were meant to make honey. The bees work together to re-pollinate the world’s flowers and go happily back to their jobs. The film moves quickly, maintaining the ninety-minute norm for animated feature made for children. However, its relevance to the market meltdown happening outside of the theaters makes this film uniquely positioned to stage important an critique of the imbalance of labor that exists in the global market.

Bee Movie attempts to situate itself within narratives of Marxist protest and critiques of global capitalism, particularly that of the exploitation of labor. Yet, the film ultimately falls short of being a truly Marxist film because it suggests that reparations and royalties be paid in exchange for surplus labor. The film also fails to follow through on the critiques it poses to the capitalist structure by ultimately suggesting that profiteering capitalists, as represented by the humans in the film, garner sympathy while laborers, as represented by the bees in the film, essentially have a duty to be exploited. Bringing this argument about in the context of ecological studies that recognize the need for bees to continue to pollinate flowers and produce honey may seem morbid, but what is perhaps just as morbid is the misguided critiques of capitalism staged at the beginning of Bee Movie that are completely forgone by the end, as if to say those critiques do not have merit or, worse, should be ignored. If anything, this film appearing at the exact moment when the financial crash occurred in late 2007 and early 2008 is evidence that the critiques at the beginning of this film need to be given a closer look. This essay seeks, therefore, to explain the connection between Bee Movie and the Marxist critique of capitalism, particularly that on the exploitation of labor. As well, this essay will situate its argument within a chronology of criticism (a) using animated film, (b) about animation, and (c) on Bee Movie specifically. Finally, this essay looks at the afterlives of animated film and its significance as a popular medium directed at children.

The question from the opening sequence of Barker’s documentary, whether capitalism is destroying itself and the wealth of the world, echoes into the viewing of Bee Movie. The outline of the Barker documentary mimics that of the Bee Movie as well. After the Matrix parody, Barker defines contemporary capitalism and then moves to asking philosophers and economists what is wrong, given that something is, with contemporary capitalism and what a future without it may be like. Bee Movie’s opening tour of the characters features each job that goes into the production of honey within the hive, which has been metaphorized into a factory called Honex. After realizing the exploitation of the bees is when Barry decides to sue the human race and go on strike. This moment in the film is crucial because it is the moment at which Barry’s story intersects with Marx’s most famous prediction, the creation of the proletariat.

However, before understanding the significance of the social protest Barry stages based on his critiques of the exploitation of the bees’ labor, we must consider how the film mimics the entirety of Marx’s critique of capitalism. In much the same way as Barker parodies the mishaps of the 20th century revolutionaries who used vulgar interpretations of Marx to commit crimes against humanity in their quest for absolute power, it would be parody (and dangerous) to ignore the ways Bee Movie stages Marx’s argument in favor of jumping to the conclusion that Barry is the proletariat revolutionary every viewer should aspire to be.

Understanding Marxism begins with understanding the material conditions for the creation of the proletariat, the body which Marx predicts will revolt against the capitalist exploitation of labor. Prior to the scene in the grocery store, when Barry gets his first look at the human consumption of the bees’ product, Bee Movie establishes these material conditions. It is understood, for example, that each bee carry out their entire life doing the same job. When Barry and Adam discover they will be stuck doing the job they choose for the remainder of their lives, they are on a tour of Honex. In the tour guide’s words, “You...have worked your whole life to get to the point where can work for your whole life” (Smith and Hickner). Marx may pre-date the assembly line setup used in Honex, but one of his primary explanations of the conditions under capitalism is about alienation. The theory of alienated labor comes from his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, in which he writes that workers under capitalism suffer four types of alienation (Wolff). The monotony of doing the same job for one’s entire life may be understood as the third type of alienated labor, the alienation of oneself from her species-being, the essential complex qualities and talents of the self. While the tour guide claims that “every small job, if it’s done well, means a lot,” Barry recognizes the weight of the choice of a single job for an eternity. Adam wants to work the Krelman, a device which collects “that little strand of honey that hangs after you pour it,” but its very existence points to the ubiquity of small, monotonous jobs at Honex (Smith and Hickner). The species-being is interrupted by such monotony because of the simplistic nature of monotonous work.

It is also worth noting that each type of alienated labor is deducible from the one before it. As the third type of alienated labor, alienation from species-being is deducible from type one and type two of alienated labor. The first type of alienation is from the product itself, something the viewer may not recognize in the bees’ existence until Barry realizes what bees do not know about honey: that it is stolen, packaged, marketed, and sold for profit that the laborers never see. However, the very nature of monotony can be understood as alienating from the product. The second type of alienation is work as torment, something also implicitly understood in the nature of monotony, hence the creation of the phrase ad nauseam. One might argue that torment is not felt by the workers in Honex, Adam visibly excited to work on the Krelman forever both at the beginning of the film and at the end. Yet, Marx is clear in stating that alienation is not just subjective discomfort but the fashioning of a distraction, a true and complete alienation, from the exploitation of one’s labor. Alienation is essential to understanding surplus labor, the impetus for profit under capitalism according to Marx, because without alienation, one may simply trade just the amount of labor needed to survive for the products needed to survive. Alienation acts as an important material condition for the exploitation of labor because it acts to break down what makes humans human: connections with other humans and connections with oneself. The self that is Adam is broken down by the monotony of work on the Krelman. In a sense, it does not become ‘Adam’s job’ to work on the Krelman, Adam becomes a “small job...done well” (Smith and Hickner). Adam’s species-being empties out into just being another job carried out by a bee. Understanding this is essential to understanding the exploitation of the bees, which is foreshadowed by Barry’s anxiety over choosing the same job for eternity. Despite the majority of the bees being content, accepting of their part in a wider Honex project, their alienation from their species-being and the product they produce becomes apparent when Barry sees the humans selling honey.

In the grocery store scene, Barry’s anxiety about choosing a single job for his life transforms into a heated explanation of the laborious process of creating honey. He says, “it’s hard to make it. There’s heating and cooling and stirring. You need a whole Krelman thing!” to which Vanessa (Barry’s human crush) replies “It’s organic” and Barry finishes with “It’s our-ganic,” bringing in ownership to the product. This is an essential Marxist point, as well. The labor used to produce a product is what gives it value, meaning that those who put in that labor have part-ownership of that product. This is why laborers are to be compensated for their labor. It is a pay-out for their ownership of the product they produce. The problem as Marx sees it is that this pay-out is uneven for the amount of labor most put in, hence the term ‘surplus labor.’ For Barry, this is even more so because the bees in Bee Movie receive none of the profit made on their honey, no pay-out for their labor. The concept of surplus labor is Marx’s explanation for how profit is made under capitalism:

In setting up conditions of production the capitalist purchases the worker’s labour power — his ability to labour — for the day. The cost of this commodity is determined in the same way as the cost of every other; i.e. in terms of the amount of socially necessary labour power required to produce it. In this case the value of a day’s labour power is the value of the commodities necessary to keep the worker alive for a day. Suppose that such commodities take four hours to produce. Thus the first four hours of the working day is spent on producing value equivalent to the value of the wages the worker will be paid. This is known as necessary labour. Any work the worker does above this is known as surplus labour, producing surplus value for the capitalist (Wolff).

The surplus value is created for the owner of the factory, not the worker. In exchange for the surplus labor, the factory owner lets the laborer keep her job the next day. However, Marx defines this as an exploitation of her labor because, as she does not see the profit of all of her labor, the exchange rate is no longer balanced. In the film, the humans exploit the bees completely because the bees never see the profits on the honey. Their labor is not exchanged for anything. They produce a product that is stolen by humans and therein lies the crux of the bees’ exploitation: all of the stolen honey is of surplus value, value only seen by the humans. In Barry’s words, “This is stealing, a lot of stealing!” (Smith and Hickner).

Once Barry realizes the exploitation of the bees’ labor is when the creation of the proletariat, Marx’s most famous prediction, seems to occur in the film. The Marxism in the film, however, ends at the recognition of this exploitation in the grocery store. While the implicit critiques of Honex and Barry’s anger at the humans profiting off of the bees’ honey align with Marxism, the strike that happens in the film is not in the service of Marxist ideology. In his plan to sue the human race, Barry is seeking reparations for the already stolen labor. This, again, may seem to be aligned with a form of Marxist protest, but in saying “When I’m done with the humans, they won’t be able to say ‘Honey, I’m home’ without paying a royalty,” Barry proves that his scheme does not uproot or even protest the capitalist structure, it actually takes place within it (Smith and Hickner). The film illustrates the material conditions for the creation of the proletariat according to Marx’s historiography and in the staging of a strike by the bees, it seems to follow through on the critiques it presents. However, because Barry is suing the human race for reparations and royalties, his act of protest is in vain because his process for seeking profit for the bees does not actually protest or do away with the material conditions that created their exploitation in the first place: the alienation of the bees and the imbalance of the burden of labor on the bees. Not only that, by the end of the film, the bees decide to return to their jobs and make honey for the humans and give up their honey and pollination labor willingly. The radical critiques from the beginning of the film are met with a deus ex machina end that not only seems to negate the primary critiques but actively work against their recognition for the sake of working together. In fact, the film suggests in its ending that laborers, regardless of their exploitation, have a duty to provide for consumers no matter how much they are exploited or how much they carry the burden of labor for production. In other words, the bees in their bee-ness have a duty to continue to produce honey for the humans without critiques.

As aforementioned, the use of animation to stage Marxist critiques is not exclusive to Bee Movie. Films like Marx Reloaded (2011), Capitalism: A Love Story (2009), and Requiem for the American Dream (2015) all use animation in discussing the 2007-8 financial crash and following Great Recession in Marxian terms. Therefore, Bee Movie exists in a chronology of animated films that take up Marxism; though, of those mentioned above it is the only one that is not documentary.

Bee Movie is also the only one which is directed toward children as an audience, the only one that uses fantastic elements (anthropomorphic bees) to stage Marxist critiques, even if it does not follow through on them. Bee Movie is a critical and unique film in its availability to young viewers, which Robin L. Murray and Jason K. Heumann recognize in their book That’s All Folks? Ecocritical Readings of American Animated Features. The film is significant within an ecocritical perspective in the sense that it “asserts a message of interdependence between human and nonhuman nature that calls both to action for mutual survival” (Murray and Heumann 188). By the end of the film, the call to action is has been transformed from recognizing the anxiety brought on by alienation and exploitation into the significance of ecological interdependence. While it is not the project of Heumann and Murray’s to discuss the Marxist themes during the first half of the film, they do recognize the strike’s impetus is Billy’s realization of the “humans’ exploitation of bees through honey theft” (ibid 197).

The significance of this to a child audience may seem negligible, but as Navjeet Sidhu points out in his essay “High-Ho It’s Off To Work They Go: What Children Learn from Popular Media About the World of Work,” “according to researchers, children form a basic understanding of economic principles as early as age three” (Sidhu 32). He points out that in a 1978 study of U.S. students in grades 3 through 12, many had already begun to prefer the principles of corporate capitalism (ibid 33). Sidhu even talks on Bee Movie, saying that Barry’s anxiety about working in the same job forever is something felt by many contemporary workers and the market has largely scaled back single-careers in favor of temporary jobs and multiple career choices for each person. The film, he notes, “present[s] a biased and glamorized portrayal of work,” portraying the workers of Honex as happy, devoid of “job stress, boredom, and alienation” despite their jobs being “menial and repetitive” (ibid 35-6). While Bee Movie insists everyone be “an equally contributing member” of society, it does not balance this with an equity of wealth (ibid 36).

The afterlife of this film, then, is not only one that misappropriates and lacks follow-through on Marxist critique, but one that actively reinforces the capitalist structure of exploitation and argues for its ignorance, a dangerous thing to teach children.

Bibliography

Barker, Jason, director. Marx Reloaded. Films Noirs, Medea Film, ZDF, 2011. <http://fod.infobase.com.nuls.idm.oclc.org/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=52228>

Murray, Robin L., and Heumann, Joseph K. “8. DreamWorks and Human and Nonhuman Ecology: Escape or Interdependence in Over the Hedge and Bee Movie.” That’s All Folks? Ecocritical Readings of American Animated Features. Univ of Nebraska Press, 2014, pp. 183-200. <https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nu/detail.action?docID=915035>

Ray, Kaustubh. “Capitalism and the ‘Animated Image’: Politics of Morphing on the ‘Culture’ of Animation.” IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, vol. 3, no. 1 (2014), pp. 81-91. <http://journals.sagepub.com.nuls.idm.oclc.org/doi/pdf/10.1177/2277975214529142>

Sidhu, Navjeet. “High-Ho It’s Off To Work They Go: What Children Learn from Popular Media About the World of Work.” Our Times, vol. 32, no. 6 (Dec 2013-Feb 2014), pp. 32-37.

Smith, Simon J., and Hickner, Steve, directors. Bee Movie. DreamWorks Animation, 2007.

Wolff, Jonathan, "Karl Marx", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/marx/>.

[woollyqueen]

NEW MINDS EYE

MENUFROM FEMINIZED FLORA TO FLORAL FEMINISM: GENDER REPRESENTATION AND BOTANY

Kelly McLeod

This essay investigates how women and botanical subjects have come to signify each other and been exploited through processes of marginalization by patriarchal capitalist systems, as well as how women have reclaimed their identities by altering the dialogue in botanical metaphor. Language and classification systems in Eurocentric cultures have applied gender binary thought to nature, characterizing it as feminine. The idea that women and nature are not only linked, but inferior to the binary opposition of the masculine and the logical has been reinforced by botanical metaphor, Linnaean taxonomy, and other sign systems. This division of power has enabled the exploitation of women and nature based on capitalist myths of exchange and sign value, and the subversion of other values which exist outside of capital interest. Women’s bodies and nature’s resources have been commodified, aestheticized, and sexualized for the purpose of capital gain within an ocular-centric society, where prioritization of the beautiful conceals complex identities and agency. The presentation of plants as performative botanical subjects in gardens and scientific illustrations conceals their native contexts, creating a decontextualized understanding of man’s relationship to nature (one of cultivator/cultivated), and by extension to femininity. I will be focusing on how 17th to 19th century gender politics have affected modern science and philosophy, using feminism as a methodology and gender theory analysis. By applying more contemporary insights to the way in which the past is understood, it becomes easier to recognize the systems and processes by which nature and women have come to be associated and oppressed. I would also like to show how many women have reversed some of the hurtful gendered stereotypes by engaging in the dialogue of femininity and reclaiming the botanical metaphor as s symbol of strength and knowledge.

European science, industrialization and capitalism all rely on myth and the reductionist world view to create hierarchical divisions of knowledge and power within their systems. In the sciences, these systems implement a binary of specialist knowledge versus ignorance, so that authority of particular topics is inaccessible to all but a privileged few. This divide excludes women, indigenous people, and nature from positions of power and respect, and thus they become resources to be exploited for capital gain. Through this binary language of masculine European dominance, several myths are created. Firstly, the myth of science is that it is value-free, objective, and infallible. Second, the capitalist myth that the earth and human labor can sustainably be endlessly extracted as raw materials to be transformed into capital. This mechanized world view leaves no room for sympathy with one’s environment, or with exploited people, as they are only seen as resources. These myths are simply not true, and the world has already begun to see the affects of global warming and biodiversity decline as a direct result of this mindset disregarding nature’s value outside of the capitalist paradigm (Mies & Shiva, 2014). Despite the evidence that these ideologies are imperfect, they are reinforced by sign systems that permeate everyday life. In Myth Today, Barthes (1984) describes the construction of myth through the signified, signifier, and signs which in turn form the basis for symbol and myth. In the context of capitalist patriarchal science, we see that women and nature have come to signify each other; creating a ‘sign’ that is opposite of, inferior to, and ‘other’ from the logical man. This ‘other,’ feminized nature, then becomes a signifier for raw materials and resources to be extracted to support the symbol of capital. This in turn signifies the myth of the sustainability of capitalism through the systematic exploitation of the regenerative power of nature, women, and the labor of non-European peoples (Mies & Shiva, 2014).

During the enlightenment, European culture became fascinated with logic and rationalism as a way of understanding the natural world (Mies & Shiva, 2014). Through this system, man separates himself from nature, creating a binary in which man’s logic is a method for classification and domination. This obsession with classification was driven by the imperial need for capital and power. The natural sciences, which were meant to be value-fee and objective, were driven by capitalist imperialism and were susceptible to the political and gender biases of the time. Linnaean taxonomy became a perfect colonial tool for the homogenization of botanical knowledge for the purposes of bio-prospecting, as well as giving botanical science a professional status excluding women and native peoples. Sciences that were once considered “women’s knowledge” (such as herbalism) became discredited. As the work of women in science became appropriated, the role of the feminine gender within society became weakened. Binomial nomenclature became the standardized naming system for plants around the globe, and as each new species was ‘discovered,’ it was “named” by a masculine European voyager (O’Donnell, 2010). The Latinate names of these plants are deceptive; the native cultural contexts in which the plant had previously existed are erased by this notion of ‘discovery,’ as if its existence is only legitimized by the masculine proclamation of a European scientist. Secondly, Linnaean taxonomy itself is sexualized, gendered, and ocular-centric. Since plant names are often based on morphologic description, the use-value of the plant becomes one dimensionally aestheticized by being reduced solely to its visual characteristics (Ryan, 2009). The final insult to nature in colonial botany is that the plant is assessed for its commodified value in European markets (whether for food, medicine, or decoration in gardens) and brought back to Europe to be arranged and cultivated in artificial environments.

Plants and nature are further compartmentalized and decontextualized through the process of symbolic display in botanical gardens. By featuring a variety of plant life from around the world, these gardens become a microcosmic expression of imperial wealth and power (Mukerji, 2005). The plant as a living being is subverted by being perceived as a horticultural object; part of a spectator-spectacle relationship in which it is viewed for its beauty. As the bloom is valued as the most beautiful and desirable phase within the life cycle of a plant, its seasonal appearance creates the illusion of performativity to be admired by human. This hierarchical relationship casts the plant (representing nature, beauty, and femininity) as an object meant to be used for the delight of the rational masculine subject (Ryan, 2009).

Many 17th to 19th century philosophers, who are still highly influential today, have compared women and flowers for their beauty, frailty, and intellectual inferiority to men. When upper class women began to take interest in botanical subjects due to Erasumus Darwin’s poem The Botanic Garden, there was much controversy over their ability to reason and partake in the sciences. It was thought by Rousseau that women only took interest in logic and reason as a way of embellishment; as if a woman wanting to educate herself was synonymous with being fashionable. Though women were thought to be closer to nature, it seemed that they still were not allowed to engage with it scientifically. Women’s ability to reason was further undermined by comparisons to plants in ways that emphasized their weakness, immobility, and performative beauty. Hegel contrasted men and women by stating that man is more like an animal, where women are more like plants. As man is seen to have agency, be active and able to take action; a woman is seen as more plant-like and passive. Since man is active he may move about and acquire knowledge that is universal, and though while women may have “insights,” they are only local, and limited by emotions and lack of mobility. Burke believed that women’s beauty, like flowers, is directly correlated with their weakness and reluctance; an idea reinforced by Kant’s description of femininity as delicate and naive (George, 2007). Other botanical metaphors specifically targeted women as frivolous and trendy, such as Alexander Pope’s comparison of feminine beauty to that of variegated tulips; specifically alluding to the fact that such tulips were planted in dung and thus the apparent beauty is a symptom of hidden ugliness (George, 2007). In The Flowers Personified, written in 1849, by J. J. Grandville, women were literally portrayed as flowers, representing gendered notions of femininity such as the archetypal “damsel in distress” (Branson, 2012). These satirical comparisons do both women and plants a disservice: by showcasing weakness and beauty at the expense of intellect, they create a feminine paradigm that is essentially subordinate to masculinity, ignorant of the values women and plants have to offer beyond ornament. Mary Wollstonecraft engaged with this misrepresentation of women as frivolous plants in “A Vindication of the Rights of Women,” in which she asserted that women have fulfilled this idealized but faltering vision of beauty only because of the way society had ‘cultivated’ them as objects of beauty, thus depriving women recognition of and encouragement for their mental capabilities. Wollstonecraft challenges the way in which women and exotic flowers are compared, revealing that these expressions are ultimately the projections of male desire (George, 2007). Wollstonecraft was addressing the symptom of deeply engrained sexism within her society. By making gendered associations to visual similarities between women and plants, women are made to be thought of in terms of their bodies rather than their minds and are denied autonomy. In this way women are dehumanized, being made ‘other’ from men. Men are seen as people, where as women are seen as their gender. Therefore, the notion of gender is problematic because it automatically signifies women as a deviation from what is ‘normal’ or human (Butler, 1990).

Since women were discouraged or restricted from professional science in the 17th to 19th centuries, many chose to engage with botanical knowledge through gendered proclivities, such as needlework and art. Women who attended local seminars to learn more about botany were also discouraged, as they were not taken seriously by their male peers who focused more on their appearance than their academic interests. Though women learned of botany through many of the same channels as men, their work was undermined by their gender. Much of the art and women’s writing has been categorized as crafts and hobbies and thus not considered as serious contributions to botanical knowledge. Even in the case of botanist and illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian, who was an explorer and scientist who studied plants and insects, was portrayed as a maternal figure rather than a professional scientist in the publication of her work (Branson, 2012). As women’s historical work with botany has been improperly categorized, this knowledge becomes harder to access today. It is unknown what histories have been hidden or what developments may have happened if women had not been hindered from entering the professional sciences by their gender.

Women’s growing interest in botany and Linnaean’s sexual classification system also raised issues of women’s sexuality and decency. The first component of The Botanic Garden is a portion titled The loves of plants in which pollination is described as taking place on the marital bed between gendered husband and wife plants. The most scandalous, however, was the metaphorical description describing ways in which some flowers pollinate with various partners or “concubines” and other flowers sexual systems are barely visible and reproduce in “clandestine” marriages. This information was thought to be scandalous and improper for women to know (George, 2007). Mary Delany, who lived 1700-1788, was one artist who was greatly influenced by these writings, as her artwork is often thought to be an expression of female anatomy and sexuality. The concept that plants reproduction seemed similar to that of humans, and in a ways that did not denote compulsory heteronormativity and monogamy, became a metaphor through which she could describe her intimate relationships with her female friends (Moore, 2005). In her paper cut-outs created from when she was between the ages of 74 to 82 years of age, she uses the associations of femininity and flora and creates bold images where the flower is celebrated. Unlike the dissections of botanical subjects created as scientific documents, her intimate collages give the flower a sense of identity and sensuality. Though Delany’s incredible works were both striking and accurate, they have been discredited and thought of as craft rather that high art due to the fact that she was a woman (Moore, 2005).

Botanical art, as differentiated from botanical illustration, was long considered an amateur craft that was acceptable for women (Moore, 2005). Whereas botanical illustration made to serve specific scientific needs, botanical art is less regimented and thus can be open to more expressive interpretations of botanical subjects. Though it has faced gendered discrimination over the years, and often been thought of as kitsch or purely decorative, botanical art can show unique analyses of the natural world. As a member of botanical art community, I have observed that women are still the predominant inheritors of this traditional gendered practice, continuing to reclaim botanical imagery and femininity. Plants are depicted as living individuals as opposed to generalized specimens to be dissected and compartmentalized. Botanical art celebrates plants for their individuality rather than their adherence to standard characteristics needed for speciation, and often challenges tradition beauty standards. Fiona Strickland, for example, paints dying flowers. The dead flower is an individual, rather than a specimen, with which the viewer can empathize. Rosie Saunders is another contemporary botanical artist who shifts the perception of flowers as delicate and timid by painting them at a very large scale. This creates a space where the plant is given power, and the once frail petals become an impressive and unfamiliar landscape. Today botanical art is thriving, more popular than ever before. Women continue to take back the dialogue and question the passivity of plants and femininity by applying their knowledge and experience into stunning visuals that have impact on the way inherent value of nature and biodiversity is perceived.

Understanding gendered power dynamics can help explain the ways in which women and nature have come to be associated in ways that have been systematically harmful. From commodification to aestheticization, capitalist patriarchal systems have marginalized that which is not perceived as ‘masculine.’ Systems within the natural sciences were developed for imperial purposes, thus creating bias and privileging European males; shaping a view of nature as the opposite of logic, and a thing to be dominated. Understanding of these systems can be applied to the way in which botanical metaphor implemented to change feminine paradigms and allow for the acceptance of more humanized, complex identities. Representing botanical subjects as unique, living individuals can help create a sympathetic (rather than mechanistic) vision of the natural world, equalizing gendered binaries and allowing for respect of natural resources and the acknowledgment of complex feminine identities.

References

Barthes, R. & Lavers, A. (Trans) (1984) Myth Today, Mythologies, New York: Hill and Wang.

Branson, S. (2012) Flora and Femininity: Gender and Botany in Early America. Common-Place, American Antiquarian Society and the University of Connecticut, http://www.common-place.org/vol-12/no-02/branson/

Butler, J. (1990) Gender trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 1: Subject of Sex/Gender/Desire, New York: Routledge.

George, S. (2007) Botany, Sexuality, and Women’s Writing 1760-1830: From Modest Shoot to Forward Plant, Manchester: Manchester UP.

Moore, L. L. (2005) Queer Gardens: Mary Delany’s Flowers and Friendships. Eighteenth-Century Studies 39.1, pp. 49-70, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30053588

Mies, M. & Shiva, V. (2014) Ecofeminism, Halifax, N.S.: Fernwood Publications.

O’Donnell, R. (2010) ‘Imperial Plants: Modern Science, Plant Classification and European Voyages of Discovery’, Graduate Journal of Social Science, 7.1., http://gjss.org/sites/default/files/issues/chapters/papers/Journal-07-01–05-ODonnell.pdf

Ryan, J. C. & Rooney, Monique (ed.) (2009) ‘Plants That Perform For You’? From Floral Aesthetics to Floraesthesis in the Southwest of Western Australia,’ Australian Humanities Review, 47. pp. 117-40. Available from: http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-November-2009/ryan.html

Mukerji, C. (2005) ‘Dominion, Demonstration, and Domination,’ In: Schiebinger, L. (ed.), Swan, C. (ed.). (2005) Colonial Botany, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.

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[paige-s-pages]

Leaking Women: A Genealogy of Gendered and Racialized Flowby Michelle Fine

Abstract

:

“Through a feminist and critical race analytic, this paper theorizes the disruptions evoked by leaky women—actually doubly leaky women—those whose nipples, peri-menopausal uterus’ and mouths have “leaked” in ways that rupture/stain/expose the white-patriarchal-capitalist enclosure of work, home and the streets and then dared to leak again by suing for justice in court. In a closing coda, I address the race/class policing dynamics between she who leaks and the “respectable” [usually white] women recruited to plaster up the hole and cauterize the leaker.”

“In this essay I am interested in the ruptures, that is the leaks, that women release, carry, narrate, scream, drip onto the carpet of gendered and raced domination. Speaking both metaphorically and in ways embodied, about women’s breast milk, blood, urine and wild tongues that violate norms, and drawing on an assemblage of archival material, I attempt to decipher how gender intersects with race and class in a watercolour pattern of who is accused of leaking, who is punished for leaking and who tries to discipline the leaky woman.”

“This argument is not crafted to argue that women leak more than men (although they probably do); that the gender binary is “real” (it is definitively not); that woman is a coherent category or that leaky women are punished more (although there is evidence that they are, see Miceli et al. 2008).”

 “In this article I seek to animate a dormant pattern, provoking what Maxine Greene (1977) would call a wide-awakeness to how women—mostly of colour—are charged with being out of order, mothering in ways inappropriate, labouring in ways undisciplined, speaking too bluntly, particularly when they pull back the curtains on the dirty understory of gendered, raced and classed “norms.””

(NOTE FROM ME: while this essay deals heavily with racism and the imbalance and injustice between people of colour and people who are white, I still find the essay quite relevant to my practice and I am proud of the author for bringing such awareness to both the leaking body and the censorship associated with it, and also for making us acutely aware of the injustice suffered by women of colour.)

“I want to trouble the outrage evoked by women’s leakage, instigating new ways of seeing the present, carving a critical space to think again about why/how/under what conditions women’s leaks dis-ease.”

“Within spaces public, domestic and labour, women are typically expected to be containers for the run off of affect, pain, dependencies, male fluids, family and institutional excess. We are supposed to absorb secrets but not secrete.”

“I write in the midst of #MeToo when men, wealthy and powerful, are finally facing the consequences of careers fortified by sexual violence, power grabs, assault, even as the president and his men continue to deny, grab and violate in public.”

“By 1879, a crude tampon like insertion device was developed, as was the Hoosier sanitary belt. By the late 1880s, pads began to appear. The first official tampon was developed in 1929. Women were asked to place money into a box instead of handing money to a salesperson. As women’s “natural” flows moved into the public sphere, stigma and shame amplified.”

““wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out””

“Today we/they leak and rise in staccato rhythms, in puddles across the globe—in workers’ rights movements, domestic violence struggles, reproductive justice mobilizations, in the Fight for 15, for socialism, for literacy, for queer, immigrant, Black Lives Matter, environmental and indigenous justice. No longer (only) swallowing or whispering their concerns; no longer simply and slowly going mad; no longer only running into the arms of another exploitative man. Leaking women are disrupting the category woman, insisting on economic, gender, racial, immigrant, environmental and reproductive justice; seeking not assimilation but radical transformation. Young deliciously leaky and unapologetic activists commit to wild solidarities, linking across struggles for queer, Muslim, undocumented, Black Lives Matter, indigenous, labour, environmental and economic justice and prison abolition over time, space and social media. The leaks become floods. Even as public urinals are “erected” in Paris, the halls of the U.S. Congress fill with trans women, veterans, women in hijab, breast feeding, women of all colours, lesbian and bisexual, 90 year olds and 29-year olds.”

These are just excerpts from the original essay.

[openlyandfreely]

However, while the image of Anita Hill compounds an image of black femininity as the bearer of these subjections, at the same time the black woman signals a disruption of the logic of that violently signifying history.  As the black woman on our television screens, Anita Hill circulates and signifies the burden of racial difference. But considering the force of Morrison's metaphor, the function of the material stain is both more and less than the function of an image. In addition to its "re-racing" or blackening effect, yet another disturbing aspect of the stain is its ability to disperse itself and absorb the space around it.  We discover that the stain, in its material absorption, is also consuming, in the sense of being alluring and seductive. Much like the trope of the black (w)hole that Evelynn Hammonds deploys in her essay, "Black (W)holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality," considering the restrictive and imaginative possibilities of the black woman as stain, redirects us to the black feminine both as an originary site for the capitalist exploitation and expropriation of the black body, and potentially as a site of irreducible corporeal difference. Can we think of a black stain as both an expression of the black woman's residual and trace effects in the event of her absence, and also an expression of her irresolvable presence? The material metaphor of the stain has massive implications for questions of abstraction and form, and their relationship to both blackness and gender, or more precisely, the gendering of blackness. Can we theorize the uncanny instantiation of the black woman's figure as a fleshing out of form?  Additionally, can we think about the stain's alluring double edge, its spread, as an asignifying disruption of the general economy of the image?

Rizvana Bradley

[micaramel]

Artist: Wu Tsang

Venue: Antenna Space, Shanghai

Exhibition Title: Sustained Glass

Date: September 23 – November 15, 2017

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Antenna Space, Shanghai

Press Release:

Wu Tsang’s first solo exhibition on mainland China, “Sustained Glass,” is an open spatial installation. We hold where study, a new two-channel video that she developed in collaboration with the poet Fred Moten, stands in dialogue with a series of stained-glass and light-box works that the artist has created after closely studying the spatial conditions of the gallery. With Spooky Distancing II, a performance by her and collaborator boychild which is part of their longstanding project Moved by the Motion, these works together hold the artist’s rumination on animacy and movement informed by her recent research.

A filmmaker and visual artist, Wu Tsang traverses a rich array of sites and weaves poetic sensibilities into her socially engaged practice. What sustains her fluid movements between documentary, fiction and activism are her genuine concern for disparate modes of sociality, and the hope that marginalized people gain survival in their collective loss through new forms of communion and resistance. “Sustained Glass” takes the contemporary extremities that have swept across various disparaged communities as points of departure, and asks: what does it mean to endure a socioecological disaster? What if it has been dominating our environment since, to quote from Fred Moten and Stefano Harney’s lyrical polemic Leave Our Mikes Alone, “modernity’s constitution in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, settler colonialism and capital’s emergence in and with the state”? For bodies prone to being seen as threats to normative social order, how do we move in and through this violent environment for survival?

The two-channel video, We hold where study, builds on Stefano Harney and Fred Moten ’s notion of “study,” which refers to the mode of sociality that queer, trans, and black lives continuously rehearse in their existential entanglements with one another. This kind of study is disconnected from credit, individual accreditation or the equation of capitalist efficiency with improvement; instead, it is about gathering and spending time with each other, determining what needs to be learnt together, without an end-point or any sense that we will ever escape the feeling that we are permanently immature, incomplete, without credit.[1] The video is composed of a series of duets within and between the two channels and featuring choreography by boychild with Josh Johnson and by Ligia Lewis with Jonathan Gonzalez, scored with original music by Bendik Giske. The work translates the social rhythm of study into movements of contact improvisation,  a dance form that is “based on the communication between two moving bodies that are in physical contact and their combined relationship to the physical laws that govern their motion—gravity, momentum, inertia…bringing forth a physical/emotional truth about a shared moment of movement that leaves the participants informed, centered, and enlivened.”[2] It also explores how image-making as an act of documenting movement can too become a devotional practice like study, in order to generate images reflective of our irreducible sociality.

In a world of vampiric capitalism, language can become a weapon that exploits, colonizes, and individuates. Like the title of the video, which deliberately violates English grammar with its incompleteness, Wu develops her longstanding engagement with language further in a series of light-box and stained-glass works mounted in the gallery space, and draws a link between language and the materiality as well as metaphor of glass. In literature, the glass window is frequently invoked as a figure for imagination, a lens through which we see and envision. The spatial presence of a window demands that we stand in a constant conversation with the environment. If black/trans/queer lives are broken windows to the state, then here they become passages through which we come to terms with our incompleteness and entanglements, and reclaim our power to affect the environment, to imagine, and to study.

Words from Alvin Li

[1] Stefano Harney, “Stefano Harney on Study (Interview July 2011, Part 5),” 2011, web. [2] Steve Paxton and others, from Contact Quarterly Vol. 5:1, 1979

Link: Wu Tsang at Antenna Space

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