TheMindChallenge

Don’t Call it Art, Don’t Call It

Posted by piermarton on September 23, 2014
Posted in: Culture, Film, Insights, LifeAfter, TheMindChallenge.

Just found this amongst my files… Something about labels, naming, and other games – I wrote this back in 2011.

Don’t Call it Art, Don’t Call It – (the artificiality of art , etc…)  © Marton 2011

I might have tried what others had succeeded in doing, swimming across the harbor and once on land start shouting:”Long live Dollar! Long live Dollar!” It’s a gimmick. A lot of people have landed that way and made a fortune. Céline.

There is the English expression “to lose one’s marbles.” This is exactly what happened to me. 
In the old days, reality and all decent art may have appeared at times like a beautiful arranged necklace composed of colorful pearls arranged in striking patterns. Now, poof, all gone!

A brain surgery and three weeks of intensive care later, the possibility of art had seems to have been excised as if the scalpel went a bit further than required. The necklace lost its connecting string and the pearls have gone whichever which way. There is now neither any necklace nor any pattern.

Those who profess to be artists appear now to me in great need of a Moses figure, someone to shatter their golden calf. Yes, the fetishization of one’s sensibilities seems like a frozen frame of life, something akin to my having to shout to them: “yes, you do like that sunset, but do keep walking!”

Looking at my desk after a month of not seeing it, I could understand how it would have looked to someone else, had I not made it back from the hospital. Yes, these were his tchotchkes, I could hear them. I was the one that used to give meaning to those items on my desk but without me, it was just “stuff…”

Most art, in order to be recognized as such, duplicates what has already seen. The formula “art” is conjugated in innumerable permutations… When one plays particular notes, one is able to enters the groove that says – this is art. 
Even anti-art, as radical as it may have been at the time (i.e., Gustav Metzger’s acid sprayed canvases) was only asking for recognition within the art world. Allan Kaprow’s Happenings as expansions towards life were still geared towards acceptance within the world of art.

Bresson’s masterpiece, Pickpocket, in its US DVD release has an extra, showing the consultant on the film demonstrating in front of a circus audience how “magically” – without anyone noticing it, he is able to rob wallets, ties, belts, etc… Much in the arts revolves around this kind of sleight of hands.

What if one would not need to go as far as Aden or Harar, as Rimbaud did, in order to create distance between the world of conventions, whether one calls it art or literature? Duchamp said that Art is an habit forming drug. I would add that life, as a whole, is addictive.

Could the arts not be so clever, pretty/disturbing, and too often decorative? Could they do something else besides “feed the soul?” Is it possible to ask for more? Maybe art should hide and hit us unaware, just like life does?

Keep going, don’t freeze it into “art.”

Images can be a way to create “representation” when blindness surrounds us and invisibility is preventing some of us and some of the issues from being heard, but as an end in itself, it just creates another gallery, another fancy shelf to rest our eyes.

Yes, it is great to stimulate the eyes, the mind and the heart but are we only on this earth to be massaged in these various ways?

In this world of addicts that we all seem to occupy, there has to be a place for what is not defined as art (nor defined, period).

Who says artists have to make money. Francis Ford Copolla
I would add: Who says artists have to make art? (if Copolla still means that)

Being Nobody

Posted by piermarton on June 29, 2013
Posted in: BrainScience, Death, Insights, LifeAfter, TheMindChallenge.

Nothing is more real than nothing. Beckett Malone Meurt/Malone Dies – 1951

We Are Nobody by Pier Marton

Yes, there were times when I forgot not only who I was, but that I was, forgot to be. – Samuel Beckett, Molloy, 1951

The clamor is everywhere: BE SOMEBODY!… but those efforts are illusory. Beyond our names and our affiliations lies the same eternal nobody that we were when we were born – and that we will be when we die. What surrounds us – all the stuff, the concepts… – blinds us and entraps us into a fortress, a coffin. These facts, though, do not constitute any reason to become pessimistic, merely realistic. And freer.

A false sense of self, or is it that any sense of self is false?
Not unlike the Buddhist warning about everything being “maya“- a form of illusion, it is clear that much of what surrounds us (the concepts, the busyness… ) stands on wobbly foundations.
The silence – not the physical type [machines were beeping, announcements and similar activities abounded around me] – a form of beyond-activity spelled out clearly, within a form of silence – that everything was nil.

O vanity of vanities, behind all the “stuff” that surrounds us lies…

… nothing.
And no need to expand much on this.

Either you understand this or you don’t.
More words will not help.

It seems most people have no interest in this type of “information” – it just does not seem to fit anywhere.

About “being nobody” per se, paralleling Kafka’s “I have hardly anything in common with myself ” & “My People! My People! If only I had one,” I would refer you to many others who have expanded on that topic: Guy Debord, Alejandro Jodorowski, U.G. Krishnamurti. Or you can view the recent brilliant film “The Other Son.”
Without saying, saving lives is not part of this concern.

Jacques Brel: On N’Oublie Rien, On S’Habitue/We Forget Nothing, We Get Used To It

Posted by piermarton on October 7, 2012
Posted in: BrainScience, LifeAfter, TheBodyChallenge, TheMindChallenge.

My response to someone asking me whether I was healed.
Ma réponse à quelqu’un qui me demandait si j’étais guéri.

(use Google Translate for a quick translation)

On n’oublie rien de rien
On n’oublie rien du tout
On n’oublie rien de rien
On s’habitue, c’est tout

Ni ces départs, ni ces navires
Ni ces voyages qui nous chavirent
De paysages en paysages
Et de visages en visages
Ni tous ces ports, ni tous ces bars
Ni tous ces attrape-cafards
Où l’on attend le matin gris
Au cinéma de son whisky
Ni tout cela, ni rien au monde
Ne sait pas nous faire oublier
Ne peut pas nous faire oublier
Qu’aussi vrai que la terre est ronde.

On n’oublie rien de rien
On n’oublie rien du tout
On n’oublie rien de rien
On s’habitue, c’est tout

Ni ces jamais ni ces toujours
Ni ces je t’aime ni ces amours
Que l’on poursuit à travers coeurs
De gris en gris de pleurs en pleurs
Ni ces bras blancs d’une seule nuit
Collier de femme pour notre ennui
Que l’on dénoue au petit jour
Par des promesses de retour
Ni tout cela ni rien au monde
Ne sait pas nous faire oublier
Ne peut pas nous faire oublier
Qu’aussi vrai que la terre est ronde

On n’oublie rien de rien
On n’oublie rien du tout
On n’oublie rien de rien
On s’habitue, c’est tout

Ni même ce temps où j’aurais fait
Mille chansons de mes regrets
Ni même ce temps où mes souvenirs
Prendront mes rides pour un sourire
Ni ce grand lit où mes remords
Ont rendez-vous avec la mort
Ni ce grand lit que je souhaite
A certains jours comme une fête
Ni tout cela ni rien au monde
Ne sait pas nous faire oublier
Ne peut pas nous faire oublier
Qu’aussi vrai que la terre est ronde

On n’oublie rien de rien
On n’oublie rien du tout
On n’oublie rien de rien
On s’habitue, c’est tout

Beyond Speech & Language (Au delà du language)

Posted by piermarton on July 28, 2012
Posted in: Books, Insights, LifeAfter, TheMindChallenge.

Even if some of us are lucky enough to be able to speak and be understood, silence looms over all of us.

In that sense the words of Fernand Deligny, the French writer/educator who specialized in autistic children and was read attentively by Deleuze, have a particular resonance:

Le language nest pas innocent. Le moindre mot a une densité idéologique dont on ne se rends même pas compte quand on l’emploie.
Il nous enferme dans une convention dont l’histoire-même nous échappe et qui nous semble toute naturelle.
Le language tends a prendre sans cesse le pouvoir absolu.
L’humain est ce qui échappe au language.

Language is not innocent. The smallest word has an ideological density that hides itself as it is used.
It traps us into a convention whose history escapes us and appears completely natural.
Language has a relentless tendency to seek absolute power.
The human is what escapes language.
(my translation)

Static & Frozen Movement

Posted by piermarton on July 16, 2012
Posted in: Death, Insights, LifeAfter, Rehab, TheBodyChallenge, TheMindChallenge.

Most people, when things are not perfect, would love for a change to take place. Unfortunately for many of us, the changes are minimal to the point of appearing non-existent.  In French we use the expression”faire du surplace” – moving without creating any change.

It is in that spirit – and that of the film L’Amour à Mort (Love Unto Death) by Resnais – that I hope to write a short text to be called On n’en revient pas (a French expression meaning both “from there one does not come back,” and “hard to believe”).

A Challenged Self Hears U.G. Krishnamurti

Posted by piermarton on February 22, 2012
Posted in: Books, BrainScience, Insights, LifeAfter, LifeBefore, TheMindChallenge.

What U.G. Krishnamurti (not the famous one) said over and over in his books already made a lot of sense before my surgery.

Now, would anyone be able to hear what he said, it would save a lot of my efforts in explaining the particular distance I started describing in my earlier posts (Brecht, Herzog…).

If you are willing to enter his realm – not a matter of arguing with him – there are many texts/sites that could challenge your self.
U.G.
The two main sites:

U.G.Krishnamurti.org
&
U.G.Krishnamurti.Net

And books (composed primarily of interviews):

My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody.
–U.G.


The Invisible Distance (and Fatigue) Towards The Fluff & The “Too Much”

Posted by piermarton on February 17, 2012
Posted in: Insights, LifeAfter, Post-Rehab, TheBodyChallenge, TheMindChallenge, Tips.

APPEARANCES
Because I can speak and interact normally*, most people assume that I have made a complete recovery… but the exhaustion endures (hands or knees shake at times) and very often there is a fog to be pierced through to interact with others.
The best way to express this is to say that my eyeballs don’t feel completely aligned with my eye sockets. I can look but am I looking, am I seeing?
Taking a warm shower or sitting in a hot-tub seem to help this discomfort – this simple trick provided my first sense of relief from feeling utterly “out of it.”
Similarly, if I move my head upward/downward or sideways too fast, everything spins around me. Doctors and rehab personnel have called this symptom a vestibular issue and tried in vain to manipulate my inner ear crystals.

DISTANCE
Earlier I have brought up my sense that much of life seem to be populated by “stuff” (as if I were floating in the intergalatic space described in the classic film “The Powers of Ten” [a link]).
There is also my persistent way of being disconnected from the (mundane) busyness of regular life.
As a doctor remarked astutely:

just to be there, present interacting with eyes, ears and one’s body and mind, IS a lot of work.

Normal sound and visual stimulation, even in their more quiet forms, are plenty to process. Handling the intensity of  a sunny day with the wind bristling through the leaves, or an excited crowd, is too much.

I used to value the distanciation/alienation (“Verfremdung” in German) that Brecht had advised for his epic theater. I had looked for it in theater, film and art.
Now I live with this distance on a daily basis. Even if I decried fluff in past writing, now fluff surrounds me everywhere (cf. Resnais’s film mentioned earlier).

And so, the small, the quiet, are much more appealing… I am reminded of this “Auto-Interview” by Primo Levi which I had always appreciated:

… we must be cautious about delegating to others our judgment and our will. Since it is difficult to distinguish true prophets from false, it is as well to regard all prophets with suspicion. It is better to renounce revealed truths, even if they exalt us by their simplicity and their splendor, or if we find them convenient because we can acquire them gratis.

It is better to content oneself with other more modest and less exciting truths, those one acquires painfully, little by little and without shortcuts, with study, discussion and reasoning, those that can be verified and demonstrated.

*more about that later

“What does not kill you, makes you stronger!” – Really?!?!

Posted by piermarton on February 11, 2012
Posted in: Family, ICU, LifeAfter, Post-Op, Rehab, TheBodyChallenge, TheMindChallenge.

Illness, sickness, being “out” has
NO REDEEMING VALUE.
Trying to “be positive” about it
(to hide one’s fear?)
represents an indoctrination like any other.
– life is the way it is –

While one does know certain things because one has been punched by life – often by just plain stupidity – that knowledge amounts to being able to say:

“one can be punched hard by life or by stupidity.”

Christopher Hitchens’s take on the famous saying goes this way:

“Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

“Oh, really?” says Hitchens, “Take the case of the philosopher to whom that line is usually attributed, Friedrich Nietzsche, who lost his mind to what was probably syphilis. Or America’s homegrown philosopher Sidney Hook, who survived a stroke and wished he hadn’t.”
… it ends with “one can dispense with facile maxims that don’t live up to their apparent billing.”

“The Arrogance of Normalcy”

Posted by piermarton on February 11, 2012
Posted in: Doctors, Family, General, ICU, Insights, LifeAfter, Nutrition, OtherSupport, Post-Rehab, Rehab, TheBodyChallenge, TheHospital, TheMindChallenge, Work.

I speak of this elsewhere, but it was clear from the ICU on that what was considered normal was a complete aberration. Being surrounded in rehab by many brain surgery survivors who could only mutter vague sounds to express themselves, regular activities like speaking, holding a pen or defecating have to be considered miracles, amazing victories!

Nothing can be taken for granted.

We are born disabled, and most of our lives are probably disabled in one way or another (but deny it)… and we will most likely die disabled.

Another one of those “beams in the eye” – so prevalent it is one more omnipresent blind spot.