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chargrowsref · 6 years ago

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LETTERS BETWEEN ONE.

12th October 2018

Dear Vera,

I haven’t heard from you in a while. I was wondering how you are? It’s been so long that you’re starting to feel like a mere fictional fabrication festering in my mind. Writing you a letter feels right; it feels special enough for you to physically feel my appreciation for you, but also distant enough that you feel I could still leave you.

The written word feels permanent unlike sending an e-mail, or a text. The physical movement and process of letter writing has an impact on me as the writer, the same as the action of guiding a paintbrush across a canvas or moulding clay with your hands. Letter-writing has a long and important place in history. I hope you to experience the pure exhilaration that letter-writing provides me with. I’ve been thinking a lot about where letter-writing sits within my life, our relationship, and my artistic practice. I’ve been looking to others to try and gain an understanding of the art within contemporary society and I'm hoping you can offer some kind of perspective on this. I’ll start by suggesting you read a book titled, I Love Dick (1997) by Chris Kraus, it's opened up new ideas for me on how letter-writing can be used to bring people together and tear people apart. The book follows a woman called Chris Kraus, her husband Sylvere, and Dick who Chris falls in love with. The first chapter titled ‘Scenes from a marriage’ we see Chris and Sylvere obsessing and re-writing letters to Dick, who the couple had dinner with one evening. In an interview the author Chris Kraus stated that the ‘character’ “writes him a letter because she's too shy to call” Kraus(2018)and I relate to that, I’m too shy to call you in the fear you wouldn’t pick up, or you would and I wouldn’t know what to say to you.

Letter-writing in this book becomes a game for Chris and Sylvere, an art project, this is something that resonated with me and our relationship, Vera.I hope that us exchanging letters will, unlike Chris and Sylvere, bring us closer together and something beautiful will come of it. The blurred lines between auto-biography and fiction is what makes this book all-consuming, you become wrapped in the complex narratives of these seemingly average people. The idea of someone or something being ‘average’ or ‘mundane’ is what excites me as a reader or viewer, the small chance of something being a possibility in my own life. I too could become infatuated with you and like Chris start tirelessly writing you letters. This style of writing feels loose, like a playground of language, I feel I could piece together any words and it would be okay. I do hope you reply, and we can begin to discuss with each other not only what letter-writing may mean to others but what it could mean to us.

I look forward to hearing from you.

All the best,

Charlotte.

28th October 2018

Dear Charlotte,

I’m well, although I am slightly baffled as to why you think sending me a letter is going to make me forgive your neglect of me. I will forgive you, but I will not allow your gesture to move me like I think you thought it would. I think it’s a rather selfish gesture. Your desire to be in touch with the words in which you write, and to really feel the words you piece together, is the real reason you like to write letters. Not to make someone feel special, not to create a beautiful object for someone else because if you wanted to create beautiful objects for someone else why not send someone a painting or a sculpture? You claim to be an artist but you’re giving me a letter - my bank sends me letters too. I think your romanticism of letter writing is dated and somewhat naïve. You also forget to acknowledge that Chris and Sylvere actually “pass the laptop between them” which means not even these characters, or people, you are fantasising about are experiencing the process of physically writing a letter. I think you’re disregarding the use of e-mail as a contemporary form of letter writing, the contents of an email can be just as emotive as a letter and have just as much potential to move the receiver. Take Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself (2007) for example, Calle received a break up email from an ex-lover; The words are emotive and the message is one of sadness. The email ended with the words “Prenez soon de vous” which translates to “Take care of yourself”, Calle did just that by asking 107 women to respond, critique and extract notions from the email. Thus involving other people in the reaction to the letter (similar to Kraus only reversed).

Uniting professional women in a joint effort to simply get over the break-up, allowing them to respond in their own personal way. Even the women who were involved in this process would have felt something from that email (letter), so not only is it drawing a emotion and feelings from Calle (its recipient) but also the other women involved and the audience visiting the exhibitions that it eventually became. I feel like I need to do such a thing with you. Never reply to your next letter and get everyone I know to send you their own reply. The email was meant to be private but Calle took that from the sender and allowed other people to become involved in this supposedly intimate exchange, theres something unsettling about the level of intrusiveness which is relevant to Sophie Calle as an artist but this time she is encouraging other women to be just as critical, observational and intrusive as herself. So why shouldn’t I do that to you? I don”t think you deserve the privacy of keeping these letters to myself, I shall leave it out on my kitchen table in the hope some will be interested enough in my life to read every word you pieced together for me.

Yours Sincerely,

Vera.

P.s Please find attached a picture of Sophie Calle, Take care of yourself (2007), The French pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

2nd November 2018

Dear Vera,

I understand and respect that an email can contain emotive content and be meaningful to someone, but imagine if the email that Sophie Calle received was a letter? The physicality of her partner would have been felt. The paper that he had touched would have been touched by her as she read the words that he had physically written. The envelope that his saliva sealed would have been opened with her hand - He would have been felt. I think a letter is the next best thing to physically being stood in front of someone. Do you not feel my presence when you receive a letter from me? It's also proven that there are psychological advantages to hand-writing your message. I was reading an online article published on Psychology Today written by Diana Raab Ph.D(2017) and she explained that ‘Neuroscience has proven that when you write something down, it requires deep thought, building more than 10,000 new neural pathways in your brain in one sitting; whereas writing on a computer appears to build only 600 new pathways’(Raab Ph.D,2017). Its genuinely scientifically proven that theres psychological benefits to writing letters. How can this not change your opinion on my argument? Science is proving the benefits. If I cannot begin to change your mind with this small but huge piece of information I may have to give up. I don’t know why I’m acting shocked by your narrow-mindedness. You claim I’m being naive but maybe my naivety is the very thing that is bringing me back to you?

I wouldn’t mind someone reading the letters I send you, go ahead and leave it out.

All the best,

Charlotte.

22nd November 2018

Dear Charlotte,

That’s interesting, it makes you wonder why students aren’t forced to hand write essays if it has positive effects on the brain, But that would be long winded and waste a lot of time which is somewhat my point. People just do not have the time to write correspondences. You’re not considering the convenience of sending a digital message. Also you argument about ‘Presence’ which I assume you mean ‘a person or thing that exists or is present in a place but is not seen’ (Oxford English dictionary ,2018) I feel the presence of you through the words that I read but only because its a message from you, I do however feel the presence of the postman that posted the letter through the door.

If you’re concerned about the process of letter writing I think you’re forgetting the process in which you have no control over; once you put that letter through the letter box or hand it over at the post office, it's out of your control. I could argue that you are merely just one artist in a long line of creatives who work to get the letter where it needs to go, almost like an interlinking performance piece. In the research of this idea I have come across an artist who explores this process, Walead Beshty uses the worldwide known postal service, FedEx, to post glass sculptures made to it the measurements of FedEx boxes all over the world. Rather than taking the measures to protect the work Beshty ships his work to galleries like any other ordinary parcel in the hope that they will shatter. The shatters and broken glass are physical scars of the process that the materials have gone through to get to their destination. Much like you were saying in your previous letter about letters having a physical presence of the sender with the saliva having sealed the envelope the journey that these sculptures have been on are shown through their materials. You could argue that the sculptures sit within the boundaries of Involuntary sculpture which allows the material to take on its own form with the help of human interaction. I want you to think about the process that our letters go though to get to each other.

In retrospect I think we’re both focusing too much on the romantic symbolism of letters, we’re not in a romantic relationship but we’re sending each other letters. As I’m smoking my cigarette watching the world go by my window I have a sudden feeling of panic - are you in love with me?

Again, please find a picture attached.

Vera.

24th November 2018

Dear Vera,

I will not consider Walead Beshty's work in this argument because his practice isn't about language or human narratives/relationships represented through letter-writing which fundamentally all of our previous discussions have been about. I do appreciate your argument and will take it into consideration for further research. As for the postman being a part of the process, I’ll think about your argument while listening to ‘Please Mr.Postman’ by The Marvelettes(1961).

Also how dare you be so big headed. I do not love you. You fester in my mind and anyone or anything that festers cannot be loved too.

Festering thoughts,

Charlotte.

1st December 2018

Dear Vera,

In response to your previous letter and your fear of me being in love with you, I have decided I want to discuss the book Here and Now (2008-11) by Paul Auster and J.M Coetzee. Auster and Coetzee have published their personal letters to each other which offers an intimate portrait of two two men, their lives and their friendship. Much like if we were to publish our letters. Through the very medium they’re known for we are handed a portrait of them, to hold, to touch, to take on the bus, to read and read again. I cannot carry a portrait of Bacon around with me, I cannot sit on the bus pouring through his ideas of friendship or details of his interest in watching sport.

Unlike both Kraus and Calle, the contents of letters between Auster and Coetzee are mundane to the reader. The whole book I feel as if I’m eavesdropping on a long conversation between the two. Stuck somewhere between being bored and interested, I think the intrusiveness I felt as the reader is what made me

continue reading in the hope either one of them would reveal something shocking or out of the ordinary. I think this hope came from the pure exhilaration of reading Kraus’s work. In comparison to the previous work we’ve discussed the letters between friends isn’t as exciting as a love letter, Which makes me wonder if anyone would every want to read our letters? The possibility of one day someone could be sat at home, on the bus, or even in a library reading our letters excites me. Reading our correspondence, trying to figure out what our relationship is. Let me know your thoughts. Hope to hear from you soon.

Charlotte

5th December 2018

Dear Charlotte,

I’m yet to read Here and Now (2008-2011) but I look forward to reading it. I think its interesting that something can be incredibly mundane and somewhat boring but can still keep you hooked, it’s the connection to your own life and our natural desire to know ‘inside knowledge’. By what you’re suggesting about the book it seems it will help us being to understand our own relationship with letter-writing. Although I do find letter writing dated and a bit of a chore I do enjoy our conversations and want to continue this further. I wonder how a three way letter communication could work? Another opinion and perspective.

Let me know what you think.

Vera

Bibliography

Artwork:

Beshty, W. (2008) FedEx Boxes [Installation]. Signs of the Time, The Whitney Museum of American Art (2008).

Calle, S. (2007) Take care of yourself [Installation]. The French Pavilion at the 52nd French Biennale, 2007.

Articles:

Chrisafis, A. (2007). 'He Loves Me Not', The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/16/artnews.art (Accessed: 20th December 2018)

Raab Ph.D, D.(2017) Letter writing: A sexy way to reconnect. Psychology Today. Available at:https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-empowerment-diary/201712/letter-writing-sexy-way-connect.(Date accessed:3rd January 2019)

Take Care of Yourself (2016) Available at:http://www.slow-words.com/take-care-of-yourself/ (Accessed: 30th December 2018).

Audio and Visual:

Louisiana Chanel (2018) Chris Kraus Interview: Changing Lives. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa-pG9UCTyI&t=34s (Downloaded: 3rd January 2019).

The Marvelettes (1961) Please Mr.Postman. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=425GpjTSlS4 (Downloaded: 4th January 2019).

Books

Auster,P and Coetzee, J.M.(2008-2011)Here and Now. London: Faber and Faber Ltd.

Kraus,C.(2016) I Love Dick. First British edition, London: Serpent’s Tail.

Images:

Klienefenn,F.(2007) Take care of yourself [Installation view] Available at: https://www.arter.net/en/projets/take-care-of-yourself/ (Downloaded: 3rd January 2019)

Arts on 5.(2008) FedEx Boxes [Installation view] Available at:https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/01/fedex-works-walead-beshty/ (Downloaded: 28th December 2018)

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