In which I deconstruct my love for you...

There is no law, whether natural or not, which forbids talking about things.
Roland Barthes, Mythologies

Barthes says that myth is a type of speech, then goes on to explain what he means by speech (an image can be speech). Everything, pretty much, can be myth: this is where I got the idea that myth is a story with meaning (as opposed to being a bunch of nonsense, or a story for kids, or an easy way to dismiss anything that I don't accept).

Barthes uses red roses as an example: I use them to signify my passion. Then he breaks it down, to show how the roses have been   passionified.

Here are some lovely red roses, just for you. Barthes divides the experience of the roses (let's not get into whether ceci n'est pas une rose) into two parts: the experiential level and the analytical. The experiential part is being in the world and seeing the roses - and feeling the emotional rush that I hope they bring, smelling them, seeing them - and the analytical part, which is a bit like sitting in Morpheus' ship and watching the roses as information on a screen.

You know what, I've just remembered, I have given real roses to people and they have appeared not to know what I was trying to say. Because I consider giving someone roses (with a big shit-eating grin) to be telling a story, a myth. And that story is I love you. 

Barthes says the roses are a sign. He's obviously wrong about that - a sign has less flexible interpretations, and if my rose giving has been repeated read in different ways (ranging from he's a bit creepy to what a nice gesture), it can't have the weight that Barthes reckons a sign has. 


Wait, I think I'm getting lost in romantic bitterness, again.

Okay, I am giving you some roses, and this is a myth. The myth is communicated by the associations of the roses. Myth is about communicating. I am communicating the stirrings of my libido. Or maybe the love of which I speak is a yearning to share higher experiences with you, like Plato says. They are red, the colour of blood, of passion, of desire, of Eros...

I'm assuming that we share a language, a mode of speech, in which red is sexy and roses correspond to desire and if I had gone for white roses, the desire would mean something else, but red, look, it's libidinal, for Aphrodite's sake are you getting the message?

If these roses were to decay and we could see things as they are and not through a glass darkly then perhaps they would dissolve into remains of a physical object and a detritus of the passion promised by the myth, which is made by the shared mode of speech, implied in bud and colour and not existing except on that higher plain, the analytical one where Barthes sits and reads, sits and judges.

ROSES PLUS PASSION EQUAL A SIGN.

Well, I though it was nice gesture, and a bit easier than actually saying the words. No, I haven't got any wriggle room to back down, but I'm also saying I'm the kind of person who gives you roses, and wouldn't it be nice to hang out with that kind of person? I am weighting the roses with meaning. The rose is a sign that points to me. 

Whatever. Anyone want to buy some roses? I've got some going cheap.

Derrida Chat Show

deconstructed ghost by yeremaia

I am delighted that for this episode we do have the real ghost of Jacques Derrida. As you may remember last time, a Greek wrestler tried to convince us…
If I can stop you there: the notion of individual identity is hardly verifiable. Whether the soul of Jacques remains French or is partaking in a conglomeration of collective consciousness is a matter upon which we must remain silent.

But you are Derrida, not Wittgenstein?
That is a matter of subjective opinion.

Oh Jesus.
That is quite a different tradition: He would guarantee post-mortem individuality, for the most part.

Racing away from the metaphysics of personal immortality, and back to aesthetics… we hoped you'd be interested in adding to our discussion of performance.
And you would like me, Derrida, to perform Derrida?

Yes. Please.
I can give it the old British try. Although I hear that is very much a contested national identity now.

If we can briefly touch on your friendship with Plato… we were surprised to find his respect for the post-modern.
Death has a way of changing perspective. Besides, post-modernism recently arrived in shaol and has quite a cachet.

Hang on, postmodernism is dead?
Yes. It took sick after the retrospective in Manchester, and then died when the Scottish Referendum revived a politics that took ideas like civic nationalism and socialist idealism with a pinch of salt. Of course, these are unpalatable without ironic distance for any serious thinker, but the Referendum was a reminder that the postmodern rejection of the meta-narrative was no longer respectable.

The Yes campaign was a meta-narrative, you mean?
So was the No campaign. Only it was shit.

You are a Yes voter?
I am Jacques Derrida. I am a maybe.

Moving on… I'd like to ask you about deconstruction now you are decomposing. Did death provide the final answer that you always deferred?
Alas, it reunited me with the great philosophical traditions. And there were issues… I am no longer allowed to be called the father of deconstruction. I was taken to an angelic tribunal by Nagarjuna for breach of copyright.

The Mahayana Buddhist?
Indeed. He claimed that I plagiarised his analysis of being. Fortunately, the tribunal rejected his plea that I be erased from existence, on the grounds that Nagarjuna had tried that on before, and Jehovah was still annoyed about it.

This was Nagarjuna’s famous deconstruction of a creator god?
More his deconstruction of being itself. I must admit, while I was content to problematise signifiers of language and undermine the odd concept – say when I linked the ancient Greek ideas of poison and remedy in Plato’s Pharmacy and said they were the same word for the same thing – Nagarjuna took on the individual self. Not so much Death of the Author as the death of the human.

Is deconstruction broken, then? Another victim of history…
If you see deconstruction as a philosophy, yes. But it never was. It’s like minimalism. People thought it was a movement, but it was a technique… deconstruction is a methodology that has no ontological conclusions.

It’s just about breaking shit?
Well, to put it too simply… the reason why a certain broad-shouldered gentleman has become so close is that he sees it as a tool to challenge a certain royal tutor’s epistemological hegemony.

In English: it is a way to break down the preoccupation with categories in the tradition of Aristotle?
Indeed… the more… shall we shall… Unitarian… no, non-dualistic thinkers… find common cause with anti-capitalists. On one level, I suppose, they see categories as a method of commodification. Aristotle is unpopular with them because he provides a legitimate foundation for capitalist ideals of the individual and the object.

You are saying that consumerism is based on Aristotle’s theories?
I am saying some thinkers could see it as a rationale for capitalism. Filtered through a scientific fundamentalism…

I think I understand. Aristotle’s project was to place things into categories, allowing them to be discussed and defined. It is like they become the objects of desire… the subjects of the will… Aristotle’s description of reality as a series of discernable things transforms the universe from a holistic phenomenon into an order of discrete objects that can be used… and thence given an economic value.
Heidegger had a crack at that, too. My deconstruction – which does have much in common with Plato’s dialectics and, as I am contractually obliged to mention, Mahayana Buddhism, challenges the artificiality of these categories. If Plato was all about the divine one, with a bonus opposition that encourages a dialogue, Aristotle was a pluralist. And I am a pluralist who sees the one in multiplicity.

I think I liked the mimetic version of you better. But before we break… if Plato is a monist, how does dialectic work?
Ah, that is very simple. Where you see one plus one as equalling two, Plato regards one plus one as equalling one.

ARE YOU DANCING?

Dance4

Presents

Nottdance

7-17 March 2013

Dance4 has been responsible for bringing some of the more intriguing works in that whole physical theatre/choreography margin to the Edinburgh Fringe. That they have a biannual festival in Nottingham, Nottdance, which is a cheeky pun on the location and a nice statement of the ambiguity surrounding contemporary dance. Even the slogan could be a rejoinder to some of the more experimental performers in the genre.

Nottdance has been going for 23 years - suggesting that the question of "what is dance?' has been a bother for longer than is usually realised. It is international in scope - guests include Alias from Switzerland, Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Loar from Israel, Maria Hassabi from the USA, Miguel Pereira from Portugal, Rodrigo Sobarzo from the Netherlands and Colette Sadler from the UK. And Paul Russ, the artistic director, is clearly committed to the fun of messing with definitions.

"All of the work in this programme tells us something different about the artform by pushing the boundaries of dance and performance," he says. "For the past 23 years, Nottdance has earned its international reputation amongst artists as a vital platform to present new ideas and for audiences this remains a festival that challenges perceptions whilst being playful and entertaining."

And while the dance will continue in traditional venues like the Nottingham Playhouse and the Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottdance is promising to take a trip around the city into shopping centres, night clubs and offices.

Sometimes, experimental work is best experienced as part of a festival. My own love of Live Art comes from having attended the old National Review of Live Art in Glasgow, and my appreciation of conceptual visual art is the result of seeing loads during Glasgow International. This is partially due to context - dropping in for a bit of light entertainment and getting a deconstruction of gender relationships is always a bit of a surprise, so a festival that announces that the work will be a challenge stops too many surprises of tone.