Ο Valère Novarina και το ἐν τῶ λόγω ταξίδι

“ Ἱδού, λοιπόν, πού οἱ ἄνθρωποι, ἐπί τῶν ἡμερῶν μας, ὡς ἀόρατα σύμβολα ἀνταλλάσουν τίς λέξεις, ἕνα καί μόνο νόμισμα ἐξ αὐτῶν σφυρηλατώντας: ἄλαλοι θά καταλήξουμε, διά τῆς ἐπικοινωνίας. Ὅμοιοι, ἐπιτέλους, μέ τά ζῶα, διότι τά ζῶα ποτέ τους δέν μίλησαν, μά πάντοτε ἄριστα ἐπικοινωνοῦσαν μεταξύ τους. Κι ἐμᾶς δέν μᾶς χώριζε ἀπό αὐτά παρά μόνο τῆς ὁμιλίας τό μυστήριο. Καί εἰς τήν κατάστασιν τῶν ζῶων ἐν τέλει θά περιέλθουμε: ἐκ τῶν εἰκόνων προπονημένοι, ἐκ τῆς τῶν πἀντων συναλλαγῆς ἀποβλακωμένοι, τοῦ κόσμου τούτου καί πάλι καταβόθρες, καί πάλι τροφή γιά τόν θάνατο. Ἄφθογγο τῆς ἱστορίας τό τέλος. Στήν μηχανική καί ἐνόργανη εἰκόνα τῆς ὁμιλίας, τῆς προτεινόμενης ἀπό τό μέγα ἐμπορικό σύστημα πού ἔρχεται νά ἁπλώσει τά δίχτυα του πάνω στήν ἀποπροσανατολη-σμένη μας Δύση, στήν λατρεία τῶν πραγμάτων, στήν ὕπνωση τοῦ ἀντικειμένου, στήν εἰδωλολατρία, σ´αὐτόν τόν χρόνο πού, αὐτοκαταδικαζόμενος, μοιάζει νά μήν εἶναι πιά παρά ὁ κυκλικός χρόνος μιᾶς πώλησης ἐσαεί, σ´αὐτόν τόν χρόνο κατά τόν ὁποῖο ὁ διαλεκτικός ὑλισμός, ξεπεσμένος, ἀνοίγει διάβα στόν ὁλοκληρωτικό ὑλισμό - ἀντιπαραθέτω τήν ἡμετέρα κάθοδο διά γλώσσης ἀγλώσσου ἐν τῆ νυκτί τῆς τοῦ ἡμετέρου σώματος ὕλης, μέσω τῶν λέξεων καί τῆς μοναδικῆς ἐμπειρίας πού αποτελεῖ κάθε ὁμιλῶν, κάθε λαλέουσα ὕπαρξις τοῦ ἐδῶ, ἑνός ἐν τῶ λόγω ταξιδίου...” 

Απόσπασμα παρμένο από το βιβλίο του Valère Novarina “ Μπροστά Στον Λόγο”, σε μετάφραση (εξαιρετική) της Λουίζας Μητσάκου που κυκλοφόρησε στις εκδόσεις Παπαζήση.

Listen to:

Arcade Fire (feat. David Byrne) - Speaking in tongues

The photographs of Francesca Woodman (1958-1981)

Some tender and sensitive souls are not meant to swim too long on the surface. Very soon they are ready and they dive deep. Francesca Woodman started experimenting with the camera very young. At the age of 13, her self portrait, when seen today, is as powerful as any work by an accomplished artist. The angle and the focus, the light, the shadow, the frame, the composition, are all already finely tuned to create a dynamic and at the same time utterly hypnotic photograph. In most of her work she would often use, instead of a studio, the decaying rooms of abandoned derelict buildings. They provided her with the perfect backdrop on which to experiment. She worked meticulously inserting her nude body in the frame as the host and the ghost. A silhouette that bends and blends in with what surrounds it and sometimes becomes suspended in mid air as if obeying the rules of another parallel plane of existence. Sometimes we are confronted with a world of symbols and myths which tend to be strange yet hauntingly familiar. She brought mirrors and antiques and played with the idea of the distortion and the echo of the image. She used long exposures and captured that fleeting moment when a certain state is not yet ruled by rigidity and therefore is still full of magical potential becoming interior. There is a feeling of transcendence when one looks at the photographs of Woodman. But the sincerity and the innocence manage always to shine through the ruins and the surrealist setting. There is nothing pretentious here. Just the beauty and the purity of a talented young artist pushing the boundaries of her imagination and in the process creating a body of work which at the same time confounds and enraptures the viewer.   

Self portrait at thirteen



On smoking or a book came through the post

The other day I ordered a second hand book from the internet. It was Leonard Michaels' "Collected Stories". When the packet arrived, I unwrapped the book and took it in my hands. It was in good condition but then... there was this distinct cigarette odour that reached my nostrils as soon as I leafed through the first pages. The previous owner must have been a heavy smoker and he surely had been smoking while reading. I felt that the stale smell had permeated every paragraph, sentence or word of the text. As I was cascading the pages to air them a little, I noticed a pencil mark somewhere in the middle of the book highlighting a certain paragraph. It read:

"... That quick efficient feeling in the hands, plucking the shaft free of the pack, dashing a match head to perfection. Fat, seething fire. You pull the point of heat against tobacco leaf and a globe of gas rolls in to the tongue's valley, like a personal planet. Then the consummation, the slithering hairy smoke. Its danger meets the danger we live with in the average street, our lethal food, poisoned air, imminent bomb. In Morocco and Berlin, in Honolulu's sunshine or the black Siberian night, in the cruel salons of urban literati, in the phantasmagoria of brothels, in rain forests full of orchids and wild pigs where women bleed to phases of the moon and men hunt what they eat, in the excremental reek of prison cells, or crouched beside a window with a gun in your lap, or sitting in your car studying a map, or listening to a lecture at the Sorbonne, or waiting for a bus or a phonecall, or just trying to be reasonable, or staying up late, or after a meal in some classy restaurant, hands repeat their ceremony. The shock of fire. The pungent smoke. Disconnection slides across the yellowing eye. True, it's very like but morally superior to masturbation; and you look better, more dignified. We need this pleasing gas. Some of us can claim no possession the way a cigarette is claimed. What wonderful exclusiveness. In company a cigarette strikes the individual note. If it's also public suicide, it's yours. Or in the intenser moment after sexual disintegration, when the old regret, like a carrion bird, finds you naked, leaking into the night, a cigarette redeems the deep being, reintegrates a person's privacy. White wine goes with lobster. What goes with bad news so well as a cigarette? Imagine a common deprivation -- say, a long spell of no sex -- without a cigarette. Life isn't good enough for no cigarette. It doesn't make you godlike, only a little priest of fire and smoke. All those sensations yours, like mystical money. Such a shame they kill. With no regard for who it is..."

Now, I don't know if the previous owner of the book started or quit smoking after having read and appreciated this paragraph. But reading the prose of Leonard Michaels can be highly addictive and at times it feels as if time itself takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth, you pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette...

Listen to:

David Bowie - Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide