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insomniacowl · 4 years

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Neon Genesis Evangelion analysis chapter 20: Libido and Destrudo

Professor Fuyutsuki Metaphysical biology laboratory.

In attempting to understand the story of Neon Genesis Evangelion, the concept of a soul and how it plays into the wider narrative is an essential point where various story threads converge, but due to the idea of souls being abstract at best in our world, many glosses over this as an unexplainable Novum used as a set-piece. Yet, many symbolisms and set-pieces of this series require an understanding of the role of such Novum, thus we will touch on some of them here. (By Novums, I refer to Darko Suvin’s description of ‘Scientifically plausible innovations used by SF narratives’).

In NGE, the concept of ‘Soul’ is explained to lie under the branch of ‘metaphysical biology’ and was Fuyutsuki's field of academic studies. It is mentioned only in passing when we get a glimpse of his past thus making it easy to gloss over, but it is an integral part of the world-building. Side note, in our world, ‘metaphysical biology’ is a branch of the ‘philosophical biology’ but in the world of Evangelion, it is used to explain how the lived experience and emotions of a person come to take form and is a field of scientific study.

In simpler words, it is a belief that the thoughts and feelings of an individual can take material form through the use of ‘certain’ kinds of energy. It is how we can explain the maintaining of an individual’s body in a certain shape using AT field (In a shape that is imagined by the soul [ego]).

Without the AT field, there is no form

All living things consist of its soul and have a body to ‘contain’ it, this soul originating from the room of Guf. In Lilin’s case, their souls have merged with LCL and it is the AT field that keeps the fluid in the shape required to function as a living thing. This is why in the absence of an AT field (such as when it is neutralized by the Anti AT filed waves), the bodies lose its form and revert into LCL as we see during the End of Evangelion.

What does pattern Blue mean?

Unlike the Lilins, Adam, Lilith, and the angels' bodies are not made up of the LCL but what is referred to as the wave-particle matters, allowing their bodies to exists even in the absence of a soul. This is used to explain how the White giant in the central dogma (Lilith) was able to maintain its form when the soul was split and placed in unit – 00 and Rei, and how she changed into a gigantic Rei once the Soul was returned.

Not solid, nor liquid, nor gas

wave-particle matters, according to Ritsuko, refers to a unique matter that exists as both wave and particle materializing at the same moment, this is different in our world where the wave-particle duality problem still exists and we can rightfully believe that Anno simply burrowed the term without the complexities of it. Yet it is still useful to think of this matter as a form of “light” and it is best exemplifies when we see the Rei + Adam + Lilith’s (Rei + AL) hand passing through Maya without any harm, and due to it not requiring an active AT-field to maintain its shape, we can observe the Evas and Rei + AL not reverting to LCL during the End of Evangelion's "Come Sweet Death" scene.

Rei and Humans are biological different

In chapter 10, I have posited that Lilith’s DNA is present in Rei and presented the hair of Unit – 01 and Rei being the same color as a piece of evidence, I can now state this more accurately and say that part of Lilith’s wave-particle material likely has entered Rei during her body construction process. That is the reason why the cloned bodies of Rei we see in episode 23 were able to maintain their form in the absence of a soul inside them. We will be touching upon this topic again in the future.

Libido and Destrudo

Now let us talk about Libido and Destrudo. In our world, these are terms used in philosophy and psychology and tends to refer to a similar concept (refer to Herbert Marcuse's "Eros and civilization" but also many of Freud's works). However, in the world of Evangelion, they are both “Quantifiable mental energy” and are intrinsically linked to the role of souls in producing AT field.

Since the souls’ are vulnerable to having its existence interfered by another soul, resulting in it being forcefully re-shaped, AT fields are set up to maintain physical form and prevent such mishaps. However, an AT field that is too strong can also have harmful effects.

Simply put, there is an amount of AT-field required by each living thing to maintain their selfhood, this requiring a certain amount of energy to maintain this territory of self. This energy is the combination of two types of energy that are Libido and Destrudo.

Libido: the will to life

Libido is similar in concept as eros; a form of mental energy held by all living things. Destrudo is the necessary precondition for the existence of the creation of something from nothing. While Libido is often conceptualized with sexual urges, its original scope is much larger, enveloping all forms of productive energies that includes love. Libido is sub-constituted by the instincts of Id and Ego and is represented in the Evangelion series as AT-field. Libido = AT field.

REI 00N: DESTRUDO RELEASE

The result

On the surface level, Destrudo is the antithetical concept to Libido and is more often referred to as Thanatos in the Freudian concept. It can be described as the “Attraction to death”, and “Instinct to destroy”. While it might seem like a negative concept, it is integral mental energy that works alongside Libido for the continued existence of all living things. When Libido stimulates the stress for the “continued existence” of living things, Destrudo (Thanatos) is also released to maintain the delicate balance necessary for a healthy existence and mental state. In the Evangelion series, this is referred to as the Anti-AT field. We can see that Destrudo = Anti-AT field hypothesis being supported in episode 23 when Ritsuko releases destrudo waves as she initiates the breakdown of Cloned Reis’ bodies.

Let us not forget that Libido and Destrudo are concepts used to explain the existence of a soul in Evangelion. One narrative conflict in Evangelion lies in the choice between the maintenance of the individualized and atomized existence or the achievement of the unified being like those of Angels through Instrumentalization; they are fighting over the size and number of Lilins’ ego (subjecthood) that should be in existence, the existence of souls is a question that supersedes all of this viewpoints. It is the soul that is used for the creation of a connection between the pilot and their Evas. What supports this statement is the production of Libido and Destrudo when they are piloting it, and the strength and balance of this energy are what is being measured during the synchronization test. We can observe this in Asuka where her ability to pilot Unit - 02 correlates with her will to live throughout the series, and we can also say that the role of the dummy plug is the imitation of the mental (thus of Libido and Destrudo) patterns of a specific individual.

Ritsuko: Salvage start!

Maya: Roger, Sending the first wave

Maya: Eva received the waves. No rejection sequence detected

Continue with the second and third wave

No rejection was detected. No Destrudo observed.

We can see these two energies being used in episode 20 when Shinji's soul was absorbed into the Unit – 01’s core and his body reverting into LCL. The salvage operation that was performed to retrieve him explicitly showed us the graph of Libido and Destrudo meter reflected on the operators' screens. Let me pose you a question here, to bring back Shinji from his current formless shape, which of the two energy should be used to bring him back? The answer is Libido, the AT field energy. It is most likely that they inserted Libido energy into the entry plug and this can be seen in the erotic sequence that we observe from Shinji's perspective.

There are two instances of the salvage operation that we are aware of. First is Yui’s case, second Shinji’s. Both instances failed, however, this was not due to the hypothesis of the Libido-AT field being inaccurate. It is because the individual did not wish to return to individual selfhood. Although for Shinji, he managed to wake up on is own accord afterward, foreshadowing his return from the primordial ocean at the end of Evangelion.

The Shinji’s Libido is depicted often and in focus throughout the series. It starts in episode 10 with Shinji’s innocent reaction to Asuka’s filtration, the young boy’s fantasy during the Onsen sequence while overhearing Misato and Asuka’s conversation, and the touching of Rei’s breast. All these instances gave Shinji a boost in his Libido level and this can be linked to his gradual increase of Synchronisation rate. This observation can also be used to help explain the reason why fourteen-year-olds are chosen to be pilots.

The hot-blooded face of Shinji

When we look at Shinji’s face during the fight with Zeruel, at the moment his synchronization rate reached 400%, we can see the effects of Destrudo energy manifesting. In this sequence, we see Shinji smiling with what can only be explained as ecstasy that is too far off from his usual self. The high synchronization rate can be explained with the rise of the Destrudo level here. Destrudo being released due to Shinji’s desire for the destruction of Zeruel means that there is also high Libido that presents to balance out the destrudo level.

Shinji is not okay in this scene.

The metaphysical materialization of Destrudo; circa start of instrumentalization

And the result….?

The concept of Libido and Destrudo plays an integral role in our understanding of the End of Evangelion as well. At the beginning of the movie, we see Shinji having set up a strong barrier against other people (AT field), which means that his current stress for living, the Libido level is at an incredibly and irregularly high level. The sequence where he is seen masturbating to Asuka’s breast shows this dichotomy between the desire for sex against the desire to shield self from others (both being the manifestation of Libido) and it makes the viewing experience extremely uncomfortable.

Later, during the beginning phase of the instrumentalization, as the AT fields are being eroded by the Anti-AT field waves, we observe scenes that epitomizes the destructive instincts of Destrudo. The scene of Shinji choking Asuka is overlayed with the sinister smile during his battle against Zeruel and is followed by multiple bizarre and violent, yet childlike drawings (Libido and Destrudo often reach their peak during childhood and this can be observed in their drawings as well).

Unit – 01 with the Dummy plug choking Unit – 03 (Bardiel)

I will wrap up the discussion on the Dummy system here as well. The requirement for the activation of the Evangelions is the Libido and Destrudo energies, which means that the Dummy system that only imitates the mental patterns of Libido and Destrudo production does not have emotions nor logic. Therefore we can observe the animal-like fighting style of the Dummy system against Bardiel; this shows that even if the system is based on Rei's mental patterns, it has no logic nor emotions and fights on an instinctual level. Thus the dummy system is not a perfect representation of the original.

Skipping over the details here

The progressed version of the Dummy system, one based on Kaworu and implanted into the mass production models takes this further and shows us both of the actions lead by Libido and Destrudo, this was shown in graphic and explicit detail that the movie's R-18 rating allowed. The scene that caused quite a stir, when the mass production models are sexually petting and licking Unit – 02 was led by Libido. Many chucked it up to and accused Anno being a pervert, however, I see this as an important scene that serves mainly to further explain the role of these two energies released by the dummy system. There is a question often brought up regarding the grotesque design of the Mass production models, and the answer is that it was done to visually depict the unfiltered, and uncontrolled desire for Lust (Libido) and destruction (Destrudo).

The desire for life and love and the desire for destruction and instrumentalization are hidden set pieces of this series and are easy to overlook and ignore. But we must not forget that it is depicted in canon and plays a significant role in the ongoing narrative, yet there tends to be very little discussion of this set piece. I hope that this chapter has been useful in aiding your understanding of the series further.

This chapter ends the section on the organizations and angels. Starting from next, we will dive into the discussion of each character and the roles they play in the narrative. The first batter is Kaji Ryoji.

TBC Chapter 21: Kaji Ryoji Lies and Silence

#Neon genesis evangelion #Evangelion #Eva #End of evangelion #Nge #Nagisa Kaworu #Lilith #Sci-fi #Ikari Shinji #Soryu Asuka Langley #asuka #Ayanami Rei #rei #Anno Hideaki #Katsuragi Misato #Anime #Analysis #Review #Kaji Ryoji

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faolanorionsstuff · 4 years

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Clone High OC: Sigmund Freud

He's good friends with Jésus Christo and gets along pretty well with Van Gogh.

#clone high #clone high oc #oc #jesus christo #van gogh #clone high jesus cristo #clone high van gogh #art #sketch #wip

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codyskinner · 4 years

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NEON GENESIS EVANGELION

Neon Genesis Evangelion: A Religious and Philosophical deep-dive into humanity.

NGE as I will henceforth call the mid 90s Pseudo-mecha anime, is set after a worldwide cataclysm and following the “ending” of the natural world and the beginning of a world existing in one's subconscious.

The storyline follows 14-year-old Shinji Ikari's work piloting a large mech called an Eva in a fight against the Angels, a collective of colonial aliens . This essay will be divided into 3 parts exploring what I deem to be the core of the show: The Psychology, The Philosophy, and The Religious Imagery.

The Subconscious:

NGE takes a deep-dive into the psychological motivations and subconscious urges behind many of its characters’ behaviours, most importantly, the three teenaged pilots of the supremely powerful mechs, Shinji’s father, and Shinji’s mother. After mentioning the subconscious, Sigmund Freud’s work in psycho-analytics should come to mind. If you aren’t immediately familiar, Freud was neurologist who pioneered psychoanalysis, the study on one’s subconscious urges, most notably in Freud’s view, Sex and Aggression. These two themes hold a presence in the mind’s of each character, as each has a distorted view on reality under the lens of unresolved childhood trauma. Shinji is driven by an Oedipus complex as a result of childhood abandonment, a complex from Freud characterized by a lust towards one’s own mother and desire to kill one’s father. Miss Misato, fills the mother-like role in Shinji’s life and thus, he is compelled in her direction. Misato feels trauma from the second impact and her father’s death, an incident leaving a gap of male presence in her life which she fills with casual hook-ups with a man named Kaji. Misato’s view of herself is impacted because of not only in comparison to who she wants to be but the ideal imposed onto her by the conservative and often authoritarian society she lives in, and so she is crippled with self-doubt and criticism. Asuka is one of Shinji’s teenaged peers and someone substantially more sexually aggressive than all others in EVA, stemming from the suicide of her mother. Asuka develops a resistance to truly confronting this in her subconscious so instead she occupies her thoughts with a race or competitive streak to become the best at all she does. Her competitiveness leads her to suffer from a borderline bipolar disorder characterized by bouts of mania and depressions which eventually lead to self harm. Rei is the final character in Eva I will discuss. She is another teen Eva pilot but with one major difference between her and her peers, she is a clone. Rei is fully aware of the ephemeral and fleeting of her existence and so she views herself from a purely objectivist point of view. If Rei is a clone that will die at some point, she must maximize her time as a tool, and means to get to an ends; in this sense, Rei mirrors the nature of strong high level artificial intelligence. Eventually, through her interactions with Shinji, she develops a love for humanity, and her desire towards objectivity begins to mirror the self-destructive tendencies of those around her as it is her work that puts such immense stress on her body, blurring the lines between objectivism and humanism.

The Philosophy:

After the Eva mechs defeat the last Angel, NGE ends with the success of the Human Instrumentality Project. A forced evolution of humanity in which, connectivity accelerates infinitely. As humanity is united, it becomes a singular collective conscious or “soul”. This project is achieved in benevolence for the purpose of ending all suffering and lonliness and alienation that has plagued mankind, most evident in the trauma in NGE’s main characters. Shinji’s soul or character reaches an epiphany in this collective unconscious and grapples with needing interaction and interpersonal relationships and embraces the others around him. Depending on which ending the viewer believes as cannon, the viewer has the choice of believing that Shinji accepts the project and lives in the collective or the alternative which sees him rejecting the collective, reverting the Instrumentality project, and embracing loneliness. This embrace of the Human Instrumentality project mirrors the beliefs of Carl Jung and his theory on the Collective Unconscious, the idea that one has intrinsic universal heritable elements, common to all, that exist in all people’s unconscious mind. The idea of loneliness mirrors Fredrich Nietzsche’s contributions to Existentialism, the idea that men must accept that there is nothing else beyond life and that a failure to live and take risks is a failure to realize human potential. Jean-Paul Sartre was another philosopher who added to this existentialist philosophy that humanity will live in constant anguish not because life is miserable, but because we are ‘condemned to be free’.

The Religion:

Upon first viewing of NGE, the show’s obsession with religion and religious imagery will become evident quick. Fredrich Nietzsche, the existentialist philosopher in which much of Evangelion’s themes are based from, rejects the Christian god, in reaction giving authority to community-created ethos, and the morals of individuals. As Nietzsche puts it, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” Yet this simple thesis is unsatisfying, NGE revels in the thought of higher power and higher power. The Angels of the show are in reference from characters of the Old Testament who bear the same names; the first angel is named Adam and the second, Lilith. Kaworu, one of the angels, sees humanity as beings of Lilith, and in one of the climaxes of the series, Lilith is crucified. Even the organization working on the Human Instrumentality Project use of Hebrew inscriptions and titles as a way to tie the collective unconscious to some heaven or godly universality. Mick Broderick, Associate Professor of Media Analysis at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, writes, "Anno's project is a postmodernist retelling of the Genesis myth, as his series title implies—Neon Genesis Evangelion. It is a new myth of origin, complete with its own deluge, Armageddon, apocalypse and transcendence." I personally appreciate and agree with this conclusion. I believe NGE to be one of the most important worKS of media and art of all time, in the way it tells the age old tale of religion and Genesis in the lens of contemporality and in the age of higher level AI. Because of this, I deem it as the most important explorations of human nature, and a work of art that should be seen by all.

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heckoffmate · 4 years

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My favourite thig in Clone High is the jokes about the people the characters were cloned from. My absolute favourite was Sigmund Freud’s reaction to Joan’s ridiculously artsy film. Fuckin’ had me on the floor.

#heck spouts nonsense #clone high

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tristanlovesthequeen · 3 years

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Something Smart

Tristan Arcelona

Claire Daigle

Minding the Canon HTCA-502-01

11/30/16

Artist as Purveyor of the Contemporary Landscape

The first time I saw a representation of Salvador Dali's “The Persistence of Memory” was in a cartoon on Nickelodeon called “Tiny Toons.” I forget the exact scene but somehow this image stayed with me and has pervaded popular culture since its inception. Dali first came up with the idea during a after a dinner party with his wife, Gala and some artist friends. After dinner the group decided to go to the cinema and Dali decided to hang back. He sat at the head of the table observing a loaf of Camembert cheese and pondering the super soft texture of it. He sat down and began to work at the painting. It was almost complete upon the return of his wife. Upon seeing it she proclaimed that it was a sight impossible to be unseen.

The simplicity of the initial concept of soft cheese was then taken to the next step through Dali's hyper paranoiac conceptualism and then taken even further by art critics, theorists, and historians who believed it had to do with Einstein's theory of relativity. Later on in Dali's career he began to paint about this topic, with the advent of nuclear physics and string theory, molecular structures and DNA mapping. This is an instance of artist creating a brand, and the symbiotic relationship between the supply chain and the demand creating new technologies, hybridized paintings, and advancement in concept. Dali drifted between faith systems his entire life, finding sources of inspiration and exploring them, sharing his findings and experiments through the medium of art. What started as landscape and portraiture evolved into impressionism then cubism and then his most famous surrealist stage. This period explored the concept of dream reality and meaning of dream symbols which directly connected him to the theories of Sigmund Freud. When criticized by fellow surrealists as purely a commercial painter, he denounced surrealism, needing only his wife Gala. He lived a life in the spotlight through wars, moving from Europe to New York and back again. He progressed the ideas explored in surrealism to scientific theorems and in the tail end of his career he became more of a faith based painter.

Sometimes the mythology of a painting's creation is more interesting than the painting itself. It's reputation precedes it and therefore it achieves high levels of fame. One such painting is “Dance at the Moulin de la Galette” by Renoir. The Moulin de la Galette was a popular dance hall/ bar/ restaurant for the impressionists to meet in Montmarte Paris, France during the late 1800's. Pierre Auguste Renoir had a studio nearby. Legend has it that everyday he would carry the canvas with a friend down to the Moulin de la Galette and set up his easel.

Renoir leased a studio at 12 Rue Cortot, in April 1875. It came furnished and had two floors, where he lived with his brother. He made several studies at the Moulin de la Galette. Renoir's civil servant friend Georges Riviere writes how friends helped carry the canvas back and forth “We would carry this canvas every day from the rue cortot to the moulin, because the painting was executed entirely on the spot. This was not without difficulties, when the wind blew and the big canvas threatened to fly away like a kite over the Butte.” (pg. 64)

Renoir used his friends and acquaintances from all walks of life as models. He had a favorite female sitter, whose name was Jeanne and was sixteen who refused the main role in the painting but appears later in life as the main character in “The Swing.” Instead, her sister Estelle models the pink and blue ribbon dress.

Renoir went through a period in his life where he and his fellow impressionist compatriots were penniless. Renoir combated this period in his life by writing letters to friends asking for money, also by staying with fellow artists such as Monet. It seemed the impressionist vision was fading with the salon show actually losing money and his artist group parting ways. His main gallerist Durand-ruel closed his London location and it seemed that all was lost. Famished, Renoir started painting portraits and with a stroke of luck and genius, he was able to make the acquaintance of one of Duret's friends Deudon, who was a wealthy lawyer and owner of a clothing store Old England. Duedon comissioned him to paint a mural in his estate, a portrait of Madame Duedon and five of his finished pieces.

This granted Renoir passage to build upon what he had been pursuing with his portrait studies to create the symphony of motion and light that we know as Bal du Moulin de la Galette. After exhibiting, he was able to land several published reviews as was the style at the time. However, instead of advancing his process and concept, the reviews were mostly negative, 2/6 were favorable.

Most of Renoir's paintings are figurative, all signifying spacial pictoral depth. Some are landscape. Now they seem highly unoriginal, the best part about them being the color and motion of brushstroke. His model choice changed slightly over the years, yet remained mostly young white women, beginning with light red hair and progressing to black. He undeniably had a type, at his worst remained a blank, doll-like expression. Even in the Bal du Moulin de la Galette, his most populated painting, it looks as though the main female model repeats over and over as though she were dancing with her clones. However, he combats this with the dappled shadows from the overhanging branches, the representation of the contemporary styles of the time, and the bright and sunny disposition of all the participants of the scene. One cannot help but feel nostalgic for a period that would not have existed if the Impressionists had not imagined and created it.

Advance time about a hundred years or more and we find Bruce la Bruce's movie Super 8 1/2. This movie is a mockumentary based on a queer fetishistic porn producer's life and work. Things have changed since the 90's, with the advancement of the internet interrupting basically every aspect of our lives. Porn is everywhere. This movie is reminiscent of John Waters' tongue in cheek reality. The stars are not perfect right wing citizens, they are “underground” and rife with problems, and we see how very real they are. The main character takes after Andy Warhol, he has taken to alcoholism and lives in a dingy room with aluminum colored space blankets on the walls. He is always in a state of heartbreak and his relationships with his costars are argumentative and violent.

Googie is an adventurous porn producer who finds her subjects in mysterious ways. She finds a lesbian couple hooking up in a graveyard and casts them as her new stars. A confessional interview shows them talking about their threesomes with strangers and hatred for hetero cis men. They like to “fuck them, and fuck with their minds.” Wednesday and Friday describe going into clubs with a pair of scissors and cutting off straight men's ponytails. They aren't serious strippers, they are quirky and take their sexuality and dancing with a slight humorous bend.

The stars are full of themselves and obsessed with fame. Their egos cause them to blow up in violent outbursts at each other and exploit each other. The difference between Bruce la Bruce's porn and every other run of the mill porn filmed in New York or the valley, is that these stars have been given credit for being avant garde art stars. One such plot is Bruce driving an old Jaguar down a a desolate country road and hitting a hitchhiker. He gets out of the car to check on the man who he has hit and ends up getting a blowjob when he regains consciousness. The movie concludes with the stranger throwing up on the side of the road and Bruce hopping back in the car and driving away.

A movie directed by Googie and starring Wednesday and Friday, the two lesbian “sisters,” pictures them holding a man up with a WWII army beretta, lubing up his rear and shoving the covered pistol in his behind. They finish him off by stripping him bare in the brush, powdering him and equipping him with a diaper.

The movie is a black comedy. Visually it is devoid of colour. Needless to say, it is weighty in its stark portrayal of a scene that is hardly ever represented in the main stream without being over glorified. It is an industry, much like the meat industry, that remains invisible in its process, yet is pervasive throughout history, since the dawn of photography. It has it's parallels in the art scene, with painters and photographers alike representing models who may or may not have participated in porn shoots. The credit goes to the artist usually, with the model being a conduit to his concept, and it is impossible to see how much the subject actually contributed to the process and final image.

Eventually we see Bruce's participation in the industry drowning him in sorrow. He stumbles around the courtyard of an insane asylum in black doc martens, white pants, and a white straight jacket. He has been exploited to no end, what was supposed to save his career, the interviews and collaborations, actually detrimented from it. His friend describes him as losing touch with reality, blurring the line between his movies and his waking life. We see him shellshocked on camera dropping a line of infinite wisdom and rebuking it, attempting to cover his tracks, rephrasing it as if it can be edited out of the space time continuum.

The film is filmed in low-fi black and white with almost no budget. Needless to say, it is an art film. It documents a sub culture that concerns itself with a subversive beauty, that the mainstream is dangerous. It takes hard work no matter what you do, whoever said being a pornstar is easy? We see the image of a young black man on a benchpress, the director condemning him for not being able to get it up, that he has had “Three fluffers already.” That the price of fame might be the price of your mental well being, that the more one departs from mainstream society the more danger one welcomes into their personality. That somehow being beautiful and volatile gives you control over others, it creates a desire in them to do your will. However, it is only tolerable for a short period of time. Misery loves company but it also attracts a certain type of self aware genius. We are only comfortable with our avarice in the midst of a reflection, and when that reflection starts to change we are disgusted and need to move on. We accept that life is hard and must accept the most gruesome of challenges because our ability to tolerate and moderate these events bring us a sense of personal satisfaction, the sense of grit to survive. The fear always lies with our insecurities. When will this life bring me under? How much is too much? In this industry, pain and substance abuse go hand in hand. In theory, the dampening of the limbic system allows us to surpass the constant onslaught of painful memories. What is actually happening is quite the opposite. How one chooses to combat these issues or feelings depends on a personality type or a type of abuse someone has endured in the past, whether it was mental, physical or sexual. Occasionally people attempt to welcome back this type of abuse into their lives, they put themselves in situations that repeat or glorify an abusive situation and it becomes a cycle without rebirth leading to their ultimate destruction and downfall. Given the right willpower, resources, and technique one can break this cycle. Life is not without pitfalls and setbacks, but only if we take them that way. This can lead us further into space or further equip us to deal with life has to offer us.

Ultimately society was not built to do us any favors. The kind of free sexual rebellion that this movie introduces is somewhat refreshing somewhat stale. It shows us that this behavior might not land us in prison, but might lead us to a sort of mental exile where we feel alien to the world. The world has offered us an escape from mainstream only to find that we are caught in another mainstream. Crimes against humanity are rampant wherever we go and it is not until we accept them as part of our culture that we find any release.

Tony smith created the steel sculpture “Die” in 1968 with the intention of representing the “square root” of six. It is literally six by six feet, metaphorically representing death by being six feet deep and a six foot box. It is brooding in its intentionality, also seems to be a means to an end goal of traveling to New York. The NGA describes the piece as “embracing the heroic and humanistic attitudes associated with abstract expressionist art of the 1950's,” however I would describe the movement as one filled mostly with a sense of white male machismo. How could he have not noticed the gigantic black cube in the middle of Jerusalem called the Kaaba which houses the holy book of the Q'uuraan? Millions of people flock to the religious site each year to pay homage to the prophet Muhammad. Arguably, this is an even larger homage to organized religion and the prowess of another man of a separate ethnicity. Both cubes are homages to death, one is immensely popular and other remains a mirror of a small dying culture, we shall presume the reader knows which one is which.

Sometimes art is less conceptual as a metaphor for what is already present in life, and turns into a science project that invigorates the future of materiality, which is what all visual art media is based. Traditional materials are often decided by trends in the economy, sudden turns of fate determine which path is chosen and which materials will become the new norm. What replaced the steam engine with the gasoline powered motorcar and what replaced paper made from trees instead of hemp, was usually a rich investor that decided it was easier to pollute than to create something that is sustainable and equally as useful. What we have now is a bunch of overworked, underpaid employees that are just as polluted in their minds as the environments lakes and rivers.

Iris van Herpen is a designer that falls into a new genre of material futures. Material futures deals with finding a category of unsustainable or overused materiality, whether it be, organs, meat that we eat, or clothes that we wear. She creates new fabrics that are produced using 3d scans and furthermore printed and stitched by hand and machine to create designs reminiscent of HR Giger meets fairy princess, Hufflepuff meets Slitheryn in Harry Potter fan lore. She is conducting science with the touch of a skilled wizard, producing new leather from cow cells and lightweight fabrics lighter than silk. This technology continues to progress around the world. Her theory is not that we should be creating new wearable technologies that are stylistically unsound, meant to connect us to the outside world without bringing anything new to the physical realm. Her textures and textiles connote that we can represent how we feel and what we have experienced through a suit that we wear. 3D printing is becoming more accessible, to the point that people could do it “if they could only find the time.” If Iris van Herpen ever becomes mainstream we might not find the time to leave the house in the morning, staring at our reflections, robing and disrobing again until we can find the right form to describe our ever changing mood.

As it so happens, Iris van Herpen interned for Alexander McQueen, a famous English fashion designer who has died but his name still rings on. Before his death in 2010, he put together a show called VOSS, in which models were to reenact the mentality of being in an inpatient unit. Models shaped like gazelles stumble around in high heels looking posh and sleek with some sort of headdress that looks as though they have strapped pantyhose to their heads. Kate moss fumbles at the walls, which, are double sided mirrors, the audience can see in but none of the models on the runway can see out. The models, while nice to look at, sporting some amazing designs by McQueen, are perhaps not the most interesting part of the show. The climax comes, as the large rectangular rhombus in the center of the room comes crashing open, glass shatter and butterflies spread everywhere, fluttering about in the light. The main character, unclear whether she is the protagonist/ antagonist, reclines nude inside the cube, sporting a gas mask with concord wings a precursor to a character in Mad Max Fury Road.

It just so happens that this model is Michelle Olley, a London based writer and magazine editor who specializes in culture. She was a key figure in queer and fetish culture in the 80's and 90's and has since hopped around from job to job and now works as content manager for Turner Broadcasting's Adult Swim. On her blog, she describes the experience of being involved in the project. The all around stress she was under and the real life torture she felt being kept in the box.

“If it weren’t for yoga I’d be in absolute agony by now. I can’t move much because moving breaks wings; my lower leg is dead after about twenty minutes on the chair. I’ve got at least an hour and a half alone in here, and that’s if the show starts on time, which of course they never, ever do. After about another fifteen minutes my right shoulder, which is leaning on a cushion, starts to ache. I’m clutching onto Stephen’s best scalpel—which I need to slash open the butterfly net that contains 250 live moths and butterflies. I’m holding the net in my other hand trying to keep it still so I don’t disturb them. The radio earpieces are throbbing—they’ve been hurting since they wrapped the bandages round them. It’s not too bad in the mask. I can breathe OK. The temperature is awful, though. They need to keep it cold in there so that the moths will remain still/placid. Cold air is being piped in, as when the lights go on at showtime, it’s going to get really hot. The cold air is giving me goose bumps and making the glue/moth parts all around my body really itchy. My head’s hot, my body’s freezing. Time to test whether they really are listening at all times. I ask Anna to turn off the air con and they agree to give it a rest for ten minutes. I have no idea how long it took to shut it off or low long it was off for, but it wasn’t enough. Before I know it, the pipes are blowing again—sending another flurry of broken wings and antennas off me and I’m shivering. Anna tells me they’re running about twenty minutes late (it was about an hour to the official start by this point). By this stage I have no idea how long I’ve been in there, or how long I have left. Time has ceased to be quantifiable. I’m too focused on not thinking about my discomfort, not getting emotional, saying warm and not thinking about the fact I was busting for a pee. I just wanted desperately to get it over with. Sometime later Anna calls to say it would be another fifteen minutes on top of the twenty (“We’re waiting for Gwyneth, who’s stuck in traffic”). Bring. It. On. Before getting in the box, I’d seen all the names on the chairs through the two-way mirrored glass. Paltrow was at my feet, next to Nick and Charlotte Knight; my backside was right to Isabella Blow, Grace Jones, Sharlene from Texas and Ronnie and Jo Wood. Could they tell I was hatching a radio mic? I’d also spotted Tracy Chapman, Tracey Emin and Jake Chapman’s names on the chairs. My early comment about “doing it for art” was coming true in an unexpected fashion...

No, it’s the art thing again. I want people to know what I just went through wasn’t a breeze and I did it for art. Yes, art. Because I believe it’s worth going through that much palaver if it creates a strong image that conveys an important idea. And I believe that the idea that we are trapped by our “civilized,” socially approved identities is massively important. It causes women so much suffering. Fear of aging, fear of not being thin enough. Fear of not having the right clothes. Fear of our animal natures that we carry in our DNA—fish, bird, lizard, insect, mammal. We’ve never had it more techno, we’ve never needed it more human. We humans living now still cannot turn ourselves into perfect beings, no matter how long we spend at the gym, beauty parlour, shops, etc.”

Sometimes it takes a whole orchestra of behind the scenes folks to get a project realized. Sometimes it is only a handful of people who receive the credit for a massive undertaking such as this. Why is Tracy Chapman still relevant? Because she is involved with the culture. And when all is said and done, however equally distributed the pain and strife of the work that was completed, we still live in a world where Benjamin Franklin is accredited with the discovery of electricity. Perhaps McQueen would have not felt so weighed down by the responsibility of stardom if the attention received for such a project was distributed with more equity. Michelle Olley still learned a valuable lesson in body image from the experience of participating in the project, so it seems that process can be the most important part of creation.

Haruki Murakami writes in his novel Kafka on the Shore, “That’s why I like to listen to Schubert while I’m driving. Like I said, it’s because all the performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I’m driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of—that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I find that encouraging.”

Contemporary art seems to operate solely upon this concept, that there are continuous builds based upon the notion that everything here is imperfect. Competition is based on this nodule that human kind has something to prove, that there is somehow something better to be strived for. Competition within contemporary art pushes boundaries of what is conceptual, accepted, what element of art history the piece is derived from, and what new materials can be used. Since there is no purpose in striving for perfection, it eliminates the competition within the art world. What is left is abstract free flowing ideas. Competition in the art world, it seems only exists within the art market. Survival of the fittest is based on who has the latest advancement in technology “who has the biggest guns” and who can obtain the largest chunk of the economy. Eventually people try to compensate by dumping the largest amount of money into a particular project, here size of the object, materiality, location, and finish come into play. What is left can be impactful, just because of the immense capabilities of one particular artist.

The Japanese synth composer Yuzo Koshiro, who is famous for his video game scores during the 90's describes this concept when being called the king of FM synthesis. “It’s an honour for me. Though there are a lot of people who use the FM synth well. As I said before, in terms of game music... Trying to use an FM synth with MIDI had so many restrictions. I don’t think people could use the chip to its full potential exactly as they wanted. Since I made my own editor and driver, I could control everything about the chip down to the fine details. So I think that’s why I was able produce that level of sound. I definitely don’t think I’m great at making quality tones though. Being able to control every little thing freely was one of the main reasons I received that kind of praise.” Koshiro was able to fine tune his process by using his own tools, which he developed, using his own ideal of how he saw the future. Still, he believes the final product was not the embodiment of perfection. He finds that the more one plays through a video game with the music that he has composed, the more the melodies grow on us.

“Is it the quiet shore of contemplation that I set aside for myself, as I lay bare, under the cunning, orderly surface of civilizations, the nurturing horror that they attend to pushing aside by purifying, systematizing, and thinking; the horror that they seize on in order to build themselves up and function? I rather conceive it as a work of disappointment, of frustration and hollowing—probably the only counterweight to abjection. While everything else –its archaeology and its exhaustion—is only literature: The sublime point at which the abject collapses in a burst of beauty that overwhelms us—and that cancels our existence” Kristeva.

Kristeva's “Powers of Horror” is a long, drawn out study on the abject. How she was able to complete such a tour de force is beyond us, which is probably why it seems so intelligent. She was able to sustain concentration on the most unbearable subjects, and most art students, given the the task of completing the entire transcript, are unable to do so. If there is one positive concept to be derived from this reading, it is that the abject is necessary in small doses, in order to achieve the opposite. What disrupts and disgusts us can make us believe that there is an opposite. That notion is described in the quote as the sublime.

If we look at the hollowness of space as terrifying, then we see why people decide to huddle together within city walls. We condense only to realize that this too, can be perceived as abject, and in the instance, we decide to disperse. In this way, the feeling of abjection can flip flop, all at once describing the fickle nature of the human personality, and the lightness of being alive.

“Women artists are more inward-looking, more delicate and nuanced in their treatment of their medium, it may be asserted. But which of the women artists cited above is more inward-turning then Redon, more subtle and nuanced in the handling of pigment than Corot? Is Fragonard more or less feminine than Mme. Vigee-Lebrun? Or is it not more a question of the whole Rococo style of eighteenth-century France being "feminine," if judged in terms of a binary scale of "masculinity" versus "femininity"? Certainly, if daintiness, delicacy, and preciousness are to be counted as earmarks of a feminine style, there is nothing fragile about Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair, nor dainty and introverted about Helen Frankenthaler's giant canvases. If women have turned to scenes of domestic life, or of children. so did Jan Steen, Chardin, and the Impressionists-- Renoir and Monet as well as Morisot and Cassatt. In any case, the mere choice of a certain realm of subject matter, or the restriction to certain subjects, is not to be equated with a style, much less with some sort of quintessentially feminine style.”

Traditionally, throughout history, most of the credit of winning has been given to men. Credit is sometimes equated to fame, such as Alexander McQueen's stylistic designs and art shows, where there are numerous participants. However, what equates fame? How do we quantify how well known something is? If something that lives in our hearts is more important than fame, how is it that we measure? Many ideas presented in the art history canon have been proposed by women first. We see this in the example of Carolee Schneemann's “Meat Joy” and also “Up to and Including Her Limits.” Matthew Barney used the same ideas in his piece “Drawing Restraint” several years later and arguably received more credit. He is also referencing his “personal mythology,” which might include pieces that Schneemann has produced. Meat Joy creates a scene where the body is abjectly presented as a vessel of meat, flesh we consume is also the flesh we destroy, and the theme of abject flesh is now popularized in contemporaries like Jenny Saville. Where once upon a time it was popular to idealize the human form, it is now popular to debunk the myth of a perfect form and present the new ideal as a medley of body types and human characteristics, not ignoring the ever presence of the abundance of flesh, and bodily fluids. In terms of art, the gender of the object is attributed to whomever created it, no matter how rugged or polished the piece may be. The independence of women artists does not suggest that they did not particularly belong to a certain school or class of artists, it just means that they were not recognized for being there. Since the presence of art history is also based upon the presence of critics and historians, the relationships between these individuals and the people they chose to represent is important too. The interpersonal relationships amongst individuals in the art world also influence who receives a review. Ana Mendietta is mostly recognized for her relationship with Carl Andre, as Lucian Freud is mostly recognized because he is grandson to Sigmund Freud. Not to say either is necessarily without talent, which is quite the opposite, however people are recognized mostly from their upbringing and what circles they revolve in.

Which leaves me believing something is missing within the art world and the world at large. We all experience the sense of the void, which is a mirror of the total amount of dark matter in the universe. There is something amiss, and we are not quite sure what it is. The Fifth Element addresses this concept, with the notion that there is a missing element that will save the universe. With designs by Jean Giraud Moebius and Jean Paul Gaultier, this french cult classic is one of the most visually stunning movies to date.

The plot revolves around the main character Korben Dallas and his relationship with the embodiment of the fifth element, Leeloo. She is a fanboy's dream, a young model actress that does not speak English, is the visage of perfection but does not have any visual or cultural preference of her own to speak of, nor any knowledge of who she is or what humans are. Besides this general monotony, she contains an element that is activated by a particular piece of knowledge. What Korben Dallas teaches her, is the concept of love. This is the final unifying element in the universe, the one that clarifies the dream, and brings light to an otherwise dark place. No matter what your belief system is, if you are a human, animal, sentient being, this rings true. What is the essence of life, what is the point of materiality if there is no feeling there?

With my own work, I feel a sense of displacement usually rather than belonging. A jumble of ideas are mashed together usually to bring a solution to some sort of negativity, in order to see the light shine through. Many artists use their art as a way to connect on a broader spectrum, in this way I am no different. I find that personally I connect best at a small scale, one or two people rather than a huge group. Limiting options of who to talk to can create a stronger bond, as if limiting one's palate, in order to know what is truly motivating one's soul.

With what I create, I tend to maximize my reference points. I create a mashup of things I have experienced, usually told in the form of a fable created through symbolism of images derived from 90's pop culture. Perhaps this is me bringing to the forefront the notion of keeping my childhood alive, by subliming memories of contemporary life. Art can be about breaking free of limits, so my process constantly changes to remove myself from an XY axis and a grid, to constantly build and destroy, to remove anger, hate, and turn it into love.

This semester I have learned a few things about the art world and art school in specific. There are a few key tropes that reoccur and navigating them is mostly about the language used to describe them. For example, using the word umwelt for someone's personal bubble; using the term post humanism when someone really means Sci-fi; structuralism for patterns that repeat; anthropocene for the current affect of global warming. Part of the interchangeability of words to describe these things has to do with the malleability of the ideas themselves. As we saw with Salvador Dali's study of string theory, different personal views conjure up different worlds. The study of these worlds leads us on our own personal journeys. We envelop these concepts and let the future unfold, perhaps we use art as the mechanism to advance human kind. I always thought of art as some kind of pseudo-science, now I can say that these things are interchangeable, art can be science, theory, personal reflection, fortune telling, and the economy. The mythology that leads us here today can change time.

Works Cited

Barbara Ehrlich White, Renoir His Life Art and Letters. 1984. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York

NGA.gov for tony smith's die

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/t-magazine/iris-van-herpen-designer-interview.html?_r=0

http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/michelle-olley-voss-diary/

http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2014/09/yuzo-koshiro-interview

The fifth element

#Tristan Chase Arcelona

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