Jeremy Fischer--Theorist/Critic
Yvette Baudry--Performance Artist/Writer/Poet
William Chance--Video/Multi-media Artist
Errard Ravin--Painter
Isadora Massine-Varnel--Sculptor
Elena Gundel--Performance Artist/Critic
Chea Prince--Painter: Paint/Assemblage/Collage
Evelyn Holland--Book Artist
The conversation that follows is a textual assemblage compiled from a variety of sources. The primary source is a tape-recorded transcript of a discussion between the above participants which took place in Isadora Massine-Varnel's studio in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 14, 1991; however, letters, hardcopies of electronic mail and excerpts from the written notes of various indivduals taken during subsequent teleconferences (which involved at least three--and sometimes as many as six participants) were also referenced as needed to clarify misunderstandings or, as happened more often, to enliven the confrontations generated during the original discussion.
Although responsibility for editing the materials fell to me, each of the participants was given an opportunity to comment on the first and second drafts as they were completed. The version presented here, by comon consensus, reflects the views of each individual to the extent that this is possible within the limitations of the given format.
My thanks and appreciation to all the participants.
--Chea Prince--
Isadora Massine-Varnel: Conspiracy, until recently, hadn't been a word that really interested me, but it seems that it has become increasingly common to look for one whenever events take a disadvantageous turn with relation to a person's political or ideological persuasion. This business with Clarence Thomas is a good example. In his testimony he attempted to paint a picture of a liberal conspiracy to "lynch" an uppity black who chose not to conform to the "old order." There was a conspiracy, of course, only if Anita Hill's testimony was untrue. I think these hearings are a perfect example of our relationship to "truth" and knowledge. We begin with our own opinions and argue from them to them using whatever is necessary to bridge the gap.
Chea Prince: Let's start by saying that uncertainty and confusion are the breeding ground for conspiracies and for rumors of conspiracies. If we give credence to Godel, Heisenberg and Schrodinger, and accept that there are limits to knowledge, a view that has most recently been confirmed by chaos theory, then we find ourselves bound by our subjectivity despite our common-sense consensus regarding "objectivity" and the world "out there". Is objectivity reducible to a subset of subjectivity--are we solipsistically trapped? If so, the ability to do science becomes questionable beyond a certain point--and the implications for individual psychology can be terrifying.
What I mean is that the inherent undecidability and uncertainty of self-referentiality, of whatever kind, always creates incomplete knowledge-- there can be no closure; also, experimentation is always "contaminated" by the imposed structure of the experimenter and, in general, is neither epistemologically nor ontologically neutral--we always begin somewhere--and that somewhere is a complex, ideological somewhere defined by our individual history. The same condition would hold true for art or cultural criticism.
Accompanying this recognition of the indeterminateness of verifiability with regard to an extenal "objective" reality has been a crisis regarding our ability to know what constitutes the "good" and the "just" within the broader field of culture as a whole--and "knowledge" in general. As you pointed out in the Thomas case, which I agree is a good example, credibility is divorced of verifiability and what comes to matter the most is who can construct the most convincing argument. Truths become the spoils to which the most skillful rhetoricians lay claim. Conditions are ripe for a new mythology.
Jeremy Fischer: If truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak, and we are without objective standards of goodness and justness, or "quality" and "taste" as they become formulated in aesthetics, then what has been characterized as a postmodern crisis of knowledge could, I guess, arguably be posited as the source of an increased use of conspiracy to explain complex events.
I'm suggesting, I suppose, that--a short-circuit within traditional systems of weighing truth only complicates an already difficult process of analysis, and one possible outcome of this could be a more or less paranoid attempt to bring consistency and continuity to situations that are really without any possibility of closure or resolution. We do seem to be fond of meaning--often at the expense of accuracy--and even if it has to be generated paralogically. An exciting half-truth, rumor or even outright lie seems to suit us just fine, especially if it relieves us of a sense of individual responsibility or a need to try and change things.
Elena Gundel: I seem to be hearing a subtle, or perhaps not so subtle, sense of mourning over the loss of verifiability and certainty in a great many discourses. I don't understand why we have such difficulty recognizing the opportunity to act creatively. This irresolution regarding "truth" makes room for multiple voices instead of THE voice.
Chea: Because--the window of opportunity that you are alluding to as a space for "creative freedom" presupposes a neutrality in art, science and technology--which, like it or not, form the foundation of our knowledge of the world and are responsible for our feelings of orientation--that is precisely what is being questioned. In what way is one being creative if one is unable to know who one is to begin with and how this "who" affects choices and decisions in problem-solving--if our truth about ourselves is limited to our own "subjectivity" and that subjectivity is itself structured/fractured so that it reflects in some way the surrounding culture--given that it/"I" am made up like Frankenstein's monster from bits and pieces of others, i.e., experiences with significant others and cultural institutions, Mom and MTV, what I've read in school--who is "creating" what for whom and why? Are we the creators or the created? We can attempt to hold open both views simultaneously, but it's exhausting.
Perhaps there was a time when art and history had a complementary rather than complimentary relationship. What that would mean, I think, is that at sometime during the past, art created history, i.e., the magic and ritual of the artist/shaman would foreshadow events in some believable way or others, through performance and prophecy--then later, art coincided with history--the art of the French revolution--and now, because of the acceleration of history, the complexity and mobilization of the forces making history, art has been left behind--out-distanced. Its not so much that art has reached its end, but that it is simply too slow, too kludgey, and is now irrelevant--maybe it has disappeared from view altogether. The continued attempts by artists of this generation to be avant-garde begins to have the look of a Chaplinesque, slapstick gesture--funny in a quaint, slightly ridiculous and exaggerated, outmoded sort of way--artists are no longer the 'buts' of culture, now they're the butts of history. There's a certain slippage in play--from art with the potentiality of revelation or revolution to art that is a reactionary pawn of an ever-expanding monopolistic corporate monad. The market economy becomes, increasingly, art's tar baby. Perhaps it has been all along.
Errard Ravin: So we have an identity crisis--magnified by the obscene dislocations and deterritorializations created by a technology that generates growing feelings of depersonalization and derealization.
Technology, as pointed out rather matter-of-factly by Adorno and Horkheimer, has replaced ideology, and I agree; its this substitution that has had the most devastating effects on criticism and creativity. Contending with ideology is one thing, but how can one be anything but pessimistic when confronted with the empty utopia, the dystopia--in fact, that technology seems to promise at the moment. It looks like, refering to what I just said, that any sense of place, of locality, is going to evaporate into cyber-space, and what will be left of communities is exactly nothing, a homogenized nowhere/everywhere networked to every other nowhere via computer- telecommunication equipment. Think about the possibilities for disseminating conspiratorial rumors over a distribution phenomenon like an all encompassing tele-network. If television controls most people's world view now, think of the ramifications of a fully integrated matrix of telephones, computers, and television--it boggles the mind. I can't shake visions of Foucault's pan-opticon or that eye at the apex of the pyramid on dollar bills--not that they're different. Anyway, everything and everyone seems to be under surveillance, and people want to rationalize this and believe that it's good because they have some weird idea that it's a kind of global neighborhood watch. I've never understood why the majority as a majority seem so trusting and gullible.
William Chance: Not that I don't often agree with your pessismism, but what about the promise offered by bulletin boards and interactive partnerships in helping to bring about a new definition of locality. In a way, telecommunications promise to redefine the concept of localization--time and space no longer constrain people at remote locations from collaborating--new partnerships that could not have occurred before are now formed. This is fantastic. I can work on a drawing or design with a person who is miles away and that I may have never met. Its different but not necessarily menacing.
Also, on a community scale, computers make it easier for people to stay in touch and to share ideas, although I have to admit that the lack of face to face interaction intelecommunication is somewhat problematic for me, despite its convenience. It's a different kind of human relationship.
Evelyn Holland: Wait! Where are we going with all this? First of all, I'm not sure there is any crisis of knowledge or self or anything else that's in anyway new. I don't, for instance, identify with any particular object of consciousness but rather with awareness itself. I'm not what I think but more, somehow, the source of thoughts. The contents of my consciousness may be cultural constructions--I can see that--but awareness itself belongs to another order of things. Its mysterious, not crisis-ridden. As an artist, I experience this interiority and attempt to give expression through creative gestures to what can't be said or clearly articulated. Its a way of celebrating--of playfully being here--yes--BEING HERE NOW--trite but true.
Feelings are always new feelings because the intensity of feeling them is different--the context in which they unfold is different. Delocalization is only frightening if you don't realize and accept that you always already are dislocated--there is no YOU. A self isn't fragmented, thinking is fragmented. A self is not a thing, its a process. The self doesn't exist, it comes into existence.
Yvette Baudry: I agree. However, getting back to this conspiracy thing--the self is not a simple process, it would be more accurate to understand ourselves as layered processes--made up of pieces of personalities--all of which are not present to consciousness or awareness at one time, and some of which never become conscious, hence our internal conflicts. On the contrary, many processes hum along with no need for awareness--in fact do their work better without it. Here you have fertile ground for mind control and what has been refered to as the colonization of the unconscious. What makes capitalism so insidious is that it seduces the unconscious with images of its own desire.
The tele-reality of advertising and t.v. programming is all pleasant dreams--a surreal, or perhaps hyper-real, hypnogogic state whose common stock and trade is in suggestive id-images with varying different degrees of libidinal charge, but all designed to inflame desire. The manipulation of these images is a conditioning process that literally millions of people voluntarily undergo every day. Most people I come in contact with are, for the most part, in never-neverland, and prefer it that way. They say things like "yeah, I watch a lot of t.v.--it keeps me from thinking too much-- thinking is depressing." Attempts at "reality" by the media through investigative reporting don't seem to do much more than reinforce this desire to retreat or escape into consumerism and desire, and in the process end up, ironically, reinforcing Usonians's (that's esperanto for those of us inhabiting the USA) feelings of relief that they live in the best country in the world. Amazing.
Its not that I don't agree with them--exactly--its just that I'm cursed--I don't seem to be able to stop wondering why things are the way they are--and worse, wishing they were different. It all seems so phony and transparent and obvious and I can't figure out how people can swallow this shit without gagging. Manipulation is definitely the name of the game. A game run, as we all know, by a bunch of white guys--did you notice that all the Senators at the Thomas hearings were white males? Maybe conspiracy is just another way of spelling status quo.
Isadora: The committee didn't escape my attention. I think the whole thing was a lie. In politics, like war, truth is the first casualty--though I'm inclined to go with Chea in questioning whether there is any such thing as uncontaminated truth in the first place.
In the present context our common desire should be, I think, to expose the special interests at work in all theories and discourses, and most especially the phallogocentrism we have all come to recognize and despise. But the complexity of things is a bit overwhelming. How do you follow a thread through the labyrinth of black propaganda and disinformation constantly being fed to us through the media by interest groups and others, like the CIA or FBI. I mean the size and sophistication of the international intelligence community is enough to induce paranoia, even in the most rock solid ego. How does one continue to make art under conditions like these? All that's left to us is screaming and crying!
Yvette: But what's really scary is the lack of interest on the part of so many people in what's going on--its like this is the way its always been and so its ok--the everyday is eerie. Spooky. Uncanny.
Then, t.v. turns even this into ratings--look at the enormous success of "Twin Peaks", "Northern Exposure"--both concerned with out-of-kilter, day-to-day life.
William: Under the eeriness, though, is a feeling of desperation.
Look at what these cloak-and-dagger spooks are up to. They hide expenditures, siphon money from legitimate government programs to fund covert operations--they regularly use agency watercarriers to leak information from their positions within the press and other media--well, hold on--let me read you this. I knew we were going to talk about conspiracies so I dug out this partial list I found once of things the CIA pursues on a full-time basis:
and we come full circle--but, I'm sure we haven't come close to exhausting the activities and covert operations.
Evelyn: You guys paint a picture more frightening than Nazi Germany. Its almost like you're saying that fascism has won the day--you can't say that though--there's more to life than intrigue, deception, manipulation, power- mongering--my life certainly isn't about "fuck thy neighbor"--what about nature, the sheer beauty of natural forms--what about feelings of love, trust and friendship that people share--there is ugliness and evil, but there is also harmony, excitement--the ecstasy of sex--the wonderment at the miracle of birth--its incredible to think that something, i.e., consciousness, human awareness, has evolved out of nothing--I mean the chances of life evolving out of the available natural elements is extraordinary. No matter how much talk and analysis occurs there is always a remainder--a mystery that defies reason and rationality.
Yvette--you're right, of course, that we are more complicated than our present conscious awareness, but do we really behave contrary to our own interests--I mean, is it possible that we could be programmed to override a biological instinct for self-preservation--in effect, to act against ourselves? The unconscious is, afterall, a network of defenses.
Yvette: Its not even necessary to complicate the picture with issues of "programming"--or what else--to answer your question. Take suicide--it's an auto-destruct state in which self-preservation has definitely been over-ridden. So yes, we can act aginst ourselves.
Is the overall scenario grim--yes. Is fascism winning--yes. Do we allow ourselves to be herded in directions that are self- defeating--yes. None of this is new--David Hume commented on the ease with which the mass of humankind could be ruled by a self-serving elite centuries ago.
As far as beauty, etc. is concerned--I like what Adorno said: "The definition of aesthetics as being the theory of the beautiful...is sterile because the formal character of the concept of beauty tends to miss the bountiful content of the aesthetical." So, there you have it.
William: Someone, I think it was Evelyn, said that awareness was another order of things--I think its interesting that so much of recent theory revolves around discussions of chaos and order--the order of things or their lack of order. Awareness, in Evelyn's thinking, is a higher order. People are willing to pay a high price for order--they value it at every level. Order and meaning. I think conspiracy theories, like all theory, are about order. Who holds what position in relation to whom. Who issues the orders--who is responsible for ordering others. It's only logical that we ask who is control. But so far we have only considered rather conservative theories of conspiratorial activities--those conspiracies that are earth bound and that occur among humans, are within human control.
Yvette: I know where your going with this, and I don't have a lot of patience with nonsense about flying saucers. It's just one more flight from reality into irresponsibility and victimhood. Extra-terrestrials don't rule the earth. God is dead. No ET's have arrived, yet. We're on our own.
Errard: Maybe and maybe not. It's not that easy. There are volumes of research and some very bewildering phenomenon to be explained away if you are going to categorically dismiss UFOs. You should read the literature before you draw a conclusion. I'm not saying all of what's written on UFOs is true, but there have been some startling claims made by reliable informants. It is a lot easier to focus on assasinations, coups, scandals, war and greed as examples of actions resulting from conspiratorial intentions --I agree--these occurences belong to a more comprehensible scale of events, however, the hiearchical structures of most societies and the existence of secret brotherhoods prevalent among ruling classes for thousands of years lends a sinister air to things. We may not want to consider the possibility of extra-terrestrial involvement and, perhaps, outright manipulation of our history, but then religious myths are no more far-fetched and millions of people believe them. I mean the whole concept of God is at the outer limits-- right? God, extra-terrestrials, intelligence services, communists, fascists, jews, christians, niggers, white males, etc.--everybody senses that someone is fucking with their reality.
Yvette: I never thought of myself as an empiricist or positivist, but in this case I need a little more evidence than the poor photos and stacks of government memoranda associated with most proofs that UFOs exist. For now, at least for me, they are a moot point.
Evelyn: You guys...maybe Isadora was exactly right. There are just beliefs and opinions. Things are bad enough, as far as I'm concerned, without adding cloaked Romulan or Klingon vessels to the odd assortment of spy satelites already in orbit around the earth.
Chea: I was just thinking that what all of these theories have in common is a totalizing tendency, a desire to be theories of everything, and in the process to reduce everything to the same. In physics, string theory claims to explain matter and energy. According to aesthetics, art can be anything (and, to critics of both modernism and postmodernism, has been). In economics, capitalism is busily homogenizing cultures. Politics is easily seen as a conspiratorial web that's global, if not cosmic, in reach.
Each gets caught up in the inescapable paradoxes of language. Snared by the logos.
The bewilderment caused by a search for meaning, regardless of where one begins, seems to inevitably lead toward an obscessive desire to control truth and project certainty, often at the expense of both. On and on; on and on. We've got to think other than language and meaning. But, for those who insist on an alpha-numeric answer, it's [1/0(x)]--not 42.
Elena: Ha-Ha. But I'd like to have the last word...ok?