rocks 2
Gestures for the End of Time
Written by Adam Filek We can store our own weight along the weight of a rock. A simple addition of pressure in a subtle way contributing to the compression of sediment. Our weight creates rocks – yet this statement becomes ludicrous when we consider the frail qualities of the body. By nature our bodies are vulnerable and constantly moving, so unlike a rock, it feels impossible to consider how a body could do anything to further cement this world. Our bodies fissure the land, creating machines to create holes in it. We loosen the land, we scatter debris. We push our bodies a little bit closer to the void that is the water below us. We decrease the layers of rock that keep us from entering the constant exertion of swimming. How can a body come to terms with the inevitability of death? Not just one's own death, but the death of loved ones, those who carried your body when you were unable to. How do we take the temporary gift of energy that we are granted through conception? Is there a proper and faultless way? In attempting to answer these potentially unanswerable questions, I have found myself fascinated by a short dreamlike anecdote quoted in Don McKay's Deactivated West 100: I am walking with a woman slightly older than myself along a mountain path. It is a glacial idyllic scene by moonlight. I am also somehow watching myself. We come to some huge, grey boulders. They are blocking our path. We stop, and she turns to me and looks at me. Suddenly she turns extremely ugly. Her face takes on a greenish colour and she turns suddenly very old. I realize there is only one way to to help the situation and that is to have intercourse with her. My penis enters her vagina then goes through her body into the rock behind her. Then she disappears and I am alone, having intercourse with the rock.
- June Singer, Boundaries of the Soul One may consider in his texts that Don McKay is grieving the loss of his parents. Through the guise of the allegory, he addresses the basic practices of considering the imminent distancing of ourselves from loved ones. The greenish colour of his mother’s skin signifies the leading towards her death. At the sight of the grey boulders blocking their path, the mother turns to her son to provide him the realization that she does not have every answer; in a sense, she is just as vulnerable as him. The man's grotesquifying response to his mother's frailty is a result of his disenchantment towards her previous image, understanding her to be a secure and impregnable being as children do when they are young. There was no error in seeing his mother this way as it is a necessary part of growing. His error, however, was the belief that there was something he could do to help the situation. Terrified of his mother's frailty, his primitive compulsion 'to help the situation' is an attempt to convince his mother of her youth in the way that his father validates her beauty - to engage in intercourse. The oedipal fallacy of this action causes his mother to vanish completely, either by her own accord – fleeing the situation – or by some metaphorical or literal death. In the consideration of my own mother's frailty, I fear that my actions venture into the same misapprehension. In a sense, I am attempting to repay my mother's strength for the past 21 years. If I can carry a rock endlessly, or carry my mother's own body, without hitting that cap of exertion my mother will somehow be transferred this endless energy. An impossible task, and the inevitability of attempting impossible tasks is failure. What right does a child have in questioning the strength of their mother? Is it correct for a child to feel guilt for the flaws of their parent? As infants, we are conceived and carried in the womb. Then, there is the catharsis of childbirth, experiencing the
separation of one body from another. Like a rock removed from the earth and moved elsewhere, parents carry their children. Imagine through some gesture that this responsibility of caring for a child could be reversed, that repayment could carry the power to reverse time, as a body attempts to move the heaviest rock. Now that I am old enough to recognize my mother’s vulnerability, a guilt emerges where I consider myself as a burden, a rock she must carry. So the solution is to find the strength to carry forever. We can consider the tale of Sisyphus, compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down, repeating this action forever. One can't infer that it is the promise of death that keeps Sisyphus from succumbing to his burden. Sisyphus is already dead, sentenced to a continuous purgatory in the afterlife. There is a simple comfort in imagining the questions I consider in my art as unanswerable questions; simple and meditative explorations into the most dreadful of questions, like a rock being continuously carried. In exploring the consideration of my mother's inevitable mortality alongside my own, death becomes distant. “To be strong, one has to forget. The very moment we do not remember our weakness, this weakness does not exist. A paralytic, threatened by a fire, suddenly starts to walk. He forgot that his limbs obey him no more, because a stronger interest, the interest to save his life, replaced this memory, and lo, he walks.” (Vinčent, 364) This forgetting is a process introduced to us to cope with the reality of our bodies. It is unwise to jump into a lake and begin to swim, in fear not only of drowning or freezing to death, but in the moment following the survival of the action, being inconveniently left in the woods with soggy clothes and skin turning blue. Perhaps we are paralyzed by our memories in the same way to remind us that the cold can kill us, but perhaps this possibility of death can be carried away if we simply forget about the fact that it is a
possibility. A grand – and perhaps impossible – suggestion, to not be consumed by death as something finite, but to be reminded of it’s presence in small incremental moments. To lose one's footing and fall, or to acknowledge the inability to speak when expected, or to succumb to the weakness in our limbs and drop what we carry. Perhaps it is these small deaths that one longs to forget, and eventually a point will be reached where our grandest death one will be able to forget. Much like the mother carrying the child, our existence is carried on through the memory of others who live beyond us. How do we gesture towards our dead the acceptance of this responsibility? How do we say that we desire and acknowledge their wish to live on, to forget death, to move once again with the promise of youth and fortitude? We simply pick up their rock, accustom it as our own, and continue carrying where they left off.
Bibliography Goldsmith, S. J. "Oedipus or Orestes? Homosexual Men, Their Mothers, and Other Women Revisited." Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 49.4 (2001): 1269-287. Web. Considering my future work will consider my relationship with my mother, and my work functions on some level as self-psychoanalytical pursuits, I have been focusing on psychoanalytical approaches to mother-son relationships. The essay focuses on the reversed Oedipal stage of development for homosexual boys, in which the mother becomes the chief rival for the father’s affection. I prefer not to think about our relationship in this way but I think it is something to consider since my work is in some way anticipating the death of my mother. Jones, Amelia. "Working in the Flesh: A Meditation in Nine Movements."Live: Art and Performance (2004): 132-41. Print. This essay focuses on artists who use their body as their primary medium, exploring the ways in which artists interact with their bodies. For example; Meditation VI Flesh/Wound focuses on self-inflicted pain and how pain is performatively externalized. This text also introduced me to the concept of Skin Ego, the practice of pressing one's body against objects, to gain a deeper understanding of one's body, a practice based from developmental processes commonly seen in infants. Kershaw, Baz. "‘This Is the Way the World Ends, Not …?’: On Performance Compulsion and Climate Change." Performance Research 17.4 (2012): 5-17. Web. I consider much of my performative work to be considerations for the end of the world, imagining a time when there is no houses, no land, and therefore no chance for the mind to remain stagnant or unfocused. Constantly buried under rocks. Constantly swimming. This essay focuses on performative gestures in relation to an anticipated ending of the world. The article also talks about how the body
performs in moments of crisis, and as obviously noted in the title, considers these performances as compulsions, something someone has no choice but to do. McKay, Don. Deactivated West 100. Kentville: Gaspereau, 2005. Print. As a collection of essays and poems, this book focuses on humans and connectivity with nature through simple performative gestures such as carrying a rock in one's pocket. The work serves as a recollection of McKay's time spent in nature, and as a book dedicated to the death of his parents, and accordingly much of his work deals with loss, and how nature serves as the background for overcoming tragedy. I find McKay's writings to be exemplary towards my own writing and art practice. Munsch, Robert N., and Sheila McGraw. Love You Forever. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print. Serving as the inspiration for my future work, this children's book was my mother's favourite book to read to me when I was a child. Not only in the act of the reversed carrying role that takes place between mother and son at the end of the book, but in the idea of fulfilling a promise to someone is how I relate my proposed performance to this book. Sharrocks, Amy. "An Anatomy of Falling." Performance Research 18.4 (2013): 48-55. Web. This text focuses on performance and falling as a metaphorical losing of control, and speaks towards that tension of falling in relation to many acts, and how performance in which the body is put in danger reminds us of the fragility of the body. As a practice it aims to allow the body to accept fear, risk, and the potential for pain. Vinčent, Elisabeth. "The Art of Forgetting." The Lotus Magazine 8.8 (1917): 364-65. JSTOR. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. Part essay and part poetry, this text speaks towards the processes of forgetting from childhood to death, and also considers memory as the force that keeps one from realizing their full ability to perform when introduced to distress. I found her comments most profound in imagining that it is memory that creates the impenetrable barriers in our minds while attempting
to formulate thought, and also that which disallows the body from performing when it is confronted with forces that cause anguish.
- June Singer, Boundaries of the Soul One may consider in his texts that Don McKay is grieving the loss of his parents. Through the guise of the allegory, he addresses the basic practices of considering the imminent distancing of ourselves from loved ones. The greenish colour of his mother’s skin signifies the leading towards her death. At the sight of the grey boulders blocking their path, the mother turns to her son to provide him the realization that she does not have every answer; in a sense, she is just as vulnerable as him. The man's grotesquifying response to his mother's frailty is a result of his disenchantment towards her previous image, understanding her to be a secure and impregnable being as children do when they are young. There was no error in seeing his mother this way as it is a necessary part of growing. His error, however, was the belief that there was something he could do to help the situation. Terrified of his mother's frailty, his primitive compulsion 'to help the situation' is an attempt to convince his mother of her youth in the way that his father validates her beauty - to engage in intercourse. The oedipal fallacy of this action causes his mother to vanish completely, either by her own accord – fleeing the situation – or by some metaphorical or literal death. In the consideration of my own mother's frailty, I fear that my actions venture into the same misapprehension. In a sense, I am attempting to repay my mother's strength for the past 21 years. If I can carry a rock endlessly, or carry my mother's own body, without hitting that cap of exertion my mother will somehow be transferred this endless energy. An impossible task, and the inevitability of attempting impossible tasks is failure. What right does a child have in questioning the strength of their mother? Is it correct for a child to feel guilt for the flaws of their parent? As infants, we are conceived and carried in the womb. Then, there is the catharsis of childbirth, experiencing the
separation of one body from another. Like a rock removed from the earth and moved elsewhere, parents carry their children. Imagine through some gesture that this responsibility of caring for a child could be reversed, that repayment could carry the power to reverse time, as a body attempts to move the heaviest rock. Now that I am old enough to recognize my mother’s vulnerability, a guilt emerges where I consider myself as a burden, a rock she must carry. So the solution is to find the strength to carry forever. We can consider the tale of Sisyphus, compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down, repeating this action forever. One can't infer that it is the promise of death that keeps Sisyphus from succumbing to his burden. Sisyphus is already dead, sentenced to a continuous purgatory in the afterlife. There is a simple comfort in imagining the questions I consider in my art as unanswerable questions; simple and meditative explorations into the most dreadful of questions, like a rock being continuously carried. In exploring the consideration of my mother's inevitable mortality alongside my own, death becomes distant. “To be strong, one has to forget. The very moment we do not remember our weakness, this weakness does not exist. A paralytic, threatened by a fire, suddenly starts to walk. He forgot that his limbs obey him no more, because a stronger interest, the interest to save his life, replaced this memory, and lo, he walks.” (Vinčent, 364) This forgetting is a process introduced to us to cope with the reality of our bodies. It is unwise to jump into a lake and begin to swim, in fear not only of drowning or freezing to death, but in the moment following the survival of the action, being inconveniently left in the woods with soggy clothes and skin turning blue. Perhaps we are paralyzed by our memories in the same way to remind us that the cold can kill us, but perhaps this possibility of death can be carried away if we simply forget about the fact that it is a
possibility. A grand – and perhaps impossible – suggestion, to not be consumed by death as something finite, but to be reminded of it’s presence in small incremental moments. To lose one's footing and fall, or to acknowledge the inability to speak when expected, or to succumb to the weakness in our limbs and drop what we carry. Perhaps it is these small deaths that one longs to forget, and eventually a point will be reached where our grandest death one will be able to forget. Much like the mother carrying the child, our existence is carried on through the memory of others who live beyond us. How do we gesture towards our dead the acceptance of this responsibility? How do we say that we desire and acknowledge their wish to live on, to forget death, to move once again with the promise of youth and fortitude? We simply pick up their rock, accustom it as our own, and continue carrying where they left off.
Bibliography Goldsmith, S. J. "Oedipus or Orestes? Homosexual Men, Their Mothers, and Other Women Revisited." Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 49.4 (2001): 1269-287. Web. Considering my future work will consider my relationship with my mother, and my work functions on some level as self-psychoanalytical pursuits, I have been focusing on psychoanalytical approaches to mother-son relationships. The essay focuses on the reversed Oedipal stage of development for homosexual boys, in which the mother becomes the chief rival for the father’s affection. I prefer not to think about our relationship in this way but I think it is something to consider since my work is in some way anticipating the death of my mother. Jones, Amelia. "Working in the Flesh: A Meditation in Nine Movements."Live: Art and Performance (2004): 132-41. Print. This essay focuses on artists who use their body as their primary medium, exploring the ways in which artists interact with their bodies. For example; Meditation VI Flesh/Wound focuses on self-inflicted pain and how pain is performatively externalized. This text also introduced me to the concept of Skin Ego, the practice of pressing one's body against objects, to gain a deeper understanding of one's body, a practice based from developmental processes commonly seen in infants. Kershaw, Baz. "‘This Is the Way the World Ends, Not …?’: On Performance Compulsion and Climate Change." Performance Research 17.4 (2012): 5-17. Web. I consider much of my performative work to be considerations for the end of the world, imagining a time when there is no houses, no land, and therefore no chance for the mind to remain stagnant or unfocused. Constantly buried under rocks. Constantly swimming. This essay focuses on performative gestures in relation to an anticipated ending of the world. The article also talks about how the body
performs in moments of crisis, and as obviously noted in the title, considers these performances as compulsions, something someone has no choice but to do. McKay, Don. Deactivated West 100. Kentville: Gaspereau, 2005. Print. As a collection of essays and poems, this book focuses on humans and connectivity with nature through simple performative gestures such as carrying a rock in one's pocket. The work serves as a recollection of McKay's time spent in nature, and as a book dedicated to the death of his parents, and accordingly much of his work deals with loss, and how nature serves as the background for overcoming tragedy. I find McKay's writings to be exemplary towards my own writing and art practice. Munsch, Robert N., and Sheila McGraw. Love You Forever. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print. Serving as the inspiration for my future work, this children's book was my mother's favourite book to read to me when I was a child. Not only in the act of the reversed carrying role that takes place between mother and son at the end of the book, but in the idea of fulfilling a promise to someone is how I relate my proposed performance to this book. Sharrocks, Amy. "An Anatomy of Falling." Performance Research 18.4 (2013): 48-55. Web. This text focuses on performance and falling as a metaphorical losing of control, and speaks towards that tension of falling in relation to many acts, and how performance in which the body is put in danger reminds us of the fragility of the body. As a practice it aims to allow the body to accept fear, risk, and the potential for pain. Vinčent, Elisabeth. "The Art of Forgetting." The Lotus Magazine 8.8 (1917): 364-65. JSTOR. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. Part essay and part poetry, this text speaks towards the processes of forgetting from childhood to death, and also considers memory as the force that keeps one from realizing their full ability to perform when introduced to distress. I found her comments most profound in imagining that it is memory that creates the impenetrable barriers in our minds while attempting
to formulate thought, and also that which disallows the body from performing when it is confronted with forces that cause anguish.
