Torpid Tales: Chapter 10 The Gravy Train

It stank of stale beer. The gaze was casual, disinclined on the way up the hill but in the carriage it was frontal. It bobbed. I rolled up and read. A globular noise stirred. I focused on the not too clean refreshment shelf in front. As the smell rose and mutterings began I looked at the small white sachet of salt. SALT it said and below the type a rather beautiful drawing of a salt cellar. SALT. Well now I know.

Saint-Armand the violent saint

Whoever suggested we read Pierre Saint-Armand's Laws of Hostility, thankyou. I managed to get hold of a copy through amazon, from the States, and am finding it excellent reading. Would have been useful three years ago when i was reading Simon Critchley's Very Little...Almost Nothing, which is also great on this.

TT

Titles

Further to our discussion in Brighton two weeks ago Rob and I have come up with two titles with which to title the show. They will work concurrently and separately, so, for example, they will appear on obverse sides of the same flyer, or in the press release be separated by a "and/or".

They are by no means finalised as yet, merely working titles, we would like your feedback as to how you think they operate. They are:

For Those Killed In Ambush

and/or

Wrath Of Being Rejected: Being Shut Out Makes One Lash Out

thoughts please

TT

A is for arrested. E is for envelope.

A stationary stationery order sits on our shared office table. Responsibility for its future progress in the institutional system of procurement is presently undetermined. An inert and passive Bartleby, the half completed order form prefers to stay right where it is - amongst us and between us as a talisman of passive resistance. At some point in the not very distant future we will run out of ink for the printer, and paper for the letters we print on that machine, and envelopes for those letters we are required to send to students telling them they’ve missed another deadline and are off the course.

Prior to that future point of systemic breakdown someone in the office will have to act, or not, to maintain the system.

Human agency is required. The success of the institutional system is dependent on someone deciding to act. Ultimately the potential and real consequences of inactivity will compel someone to grasp the nettle. Feeling the sting of that compulsion someone will justify their actions in everyday terms: ‘just doing my/your/somebody’s job’. Collapse will be averted. There will be no sense of success though. Failure will be felt: the failure to not see something through to its unknown end.



Aims Outcomes

To give up no holder
To put off no folder
To let go no string
To walk out no binder
To sit back no envelope
To stay off no glue stick
To ignore no bands
To deny no rulers
To defer no staples
To back down no tippex
To withdraw no marker
To await no files
To not do no pens
To not not no punch
To let the phone ring no 5 star telephone sachetwipes
Off the hook no job

Attempt (2.1) How to represent? - Robert Dingle

Attempt (2.1) How to Represent? - Robert Dingle

This follows on from matters discussed in the last meeting (18^th Jan 08) regarding how to present the project at Tuesday Meeting, Goldsmiths. Resulting from the discussion we decided not to present anything, but to use the curating studio as a site for a project meeting.

The Ding or Thing has for many centuries meant the issues that brings people together because it divides them…We don’t assemble because we agree, look alike, feel good, are socially compatible or wish to fuse together but because we are brought by divisive matters of concern into some neutral, isolated place in order to come to some provisional makeshift (dis) agreement. If the Ding can be both those who assemble because they are concerned as well as what causes their concerns and divisions, it should become the centre of our attentions: Back to Things!
Bruno Latour, Making Things Public, 2005

The Ding can be thought to designate both, a place for those to assemble who are concerned and what causes their concerns and divisions. It is a relevant place of assembly where issues are represented by those who they affect. If we can assume that an object (or issue) generates a discourse based upon agreements, disagreements, disruptions and disturbances then we should also be able to assume that it is these issues that should be addressed in assemblies, meetings, gatherings, councils etc.

http://www.bruno-latour.fr/expositions/96-MTP-DING.pdf

Ding or (Ding politics) offers a model for representation that allows for a devicive approach towards the presentation and re-presentation of issues.

Manque Manque meeting, Goldsmiths Curating Studio, Tuesday 26th Feb, Time: tba

Unfortunately we were unable to reschedule Tuesday Meeting at Goldsmiths from the 26^th Feb to the 19^th Feb. We were able to have the entire session to ourselves.

Attempt (3.1) Information - Robert Dingle

Failure Magazine

January 23, 1964, Dr. James Hardy and 11 other doctors transplant the heart of a chimpanzee into the body of a 64-year-old man. It's the first time a human organ is replaced with an animal equivalent. The patient dies 90 minutes after the procedure, but the lessons learned from the operation prove invaluable in refining the transplant process.

http://www.failuremag.com/

Attempt (3.0) Information - Robert Dingle

ON FAILURES: Evasive Gestures and Utopian Potentialities

Please find a link for the Serpentine website regarding the talk brought up in our last meeting (Friday 18th Jan, 08).

www.serpentinegallery.org/2007/11/serpentine_gallery_sweatshopth.html

Torpid Tales: Chapter 9 Signifiers

He walked towards me. He drew alongside me. 'Hello Sonny'. I made the wrong decision. I had already decided to ignore him. He knew. He passed. 'Snob'.

Torpid Tales: Chapter 8 Ruminant

Saturday was squandered. There was no point to the horizon. A grey scale hung over a blocked up mantlepiece. Dirty traces of pictures hung too long becoming smokers' patterns on flock wall paper. The only point of light that of a fire effect gas fire in the local pub. The carrier bag however was exciting. It lay in the gutter. The mystery. The preoccupation. I pressed against the bag reluctantly. It was nearly over. A letter headed sheet of paper gave everything away. Now we all could tut and point at number 10A. Sordid really. I hated myself and then ran and called the police.

Torpid Tales: Chapter 7 Cillit

It seemed so eminently simple. A clipping had been saved. A utilitarian wet room was proposed. Basic materials. Simple attention to detail. Minimal. The architect immediately started to throw up choices: of surface of porosity and of finish. Internal walls to be wrapped first with chicken wire. The plasterers arrived. Liverpool fans the Monday after a match. They spent an age smoothing the mix over the floor making an invisible slope. Four weeks later becoming over familiar with a plastic camping toilet that flopped its contents into the local loo, the shower was turned on. Water gathered on the top of the cement. It continued to gather. The plasterers returned muttering and began again raising the height of the floor another inch or so. Four weeks on. This time the water seemed to know where to go but it still gathered in a small unobliging pool. Furious. The simple lines of the space began to irritate and the walls crack. What to do? The architect ever resourceful suggested masonry paint in a cement colour. The man at the paint shop to his credit laughed. Cement colour paint to paint cement. A sheet of toughened glass was positioned to stop the water and direct it. Apart from the irritation of stubborn limescale traces it seemed to work. The room began to function. The wet room was damp. The simple lines of the space patterned with the marks of stubborn mould. What to do? Cillit?

After Laclau - Tom

In Emancipation(s) Ernesto Laclau asserts:

The Universal is absolutely essential for any kind of political interaction, for if the latter took place without universal reference, there would be no political interaction at all: we would only have either a complementarity of differences which would be totally non-antagonistic, or a totally antagonistic one, one where differences entirely lack any commensurability, and whose only possible resolution is the mutual destruction of the adversaries.

Re: Uzi - Tom Trevatt

Legislated antagonism (who legislates? would be the question here) aside, is hypothetical murder legislated for by anonymity?

Discuss

Balls in Courts

A wishy-washy liberal Vulgar Marxist writes:

Laws of Hostility sound dandy, though laws tend to be legislated in the interests of those in power, albeit under the rubric of alleged consensus. Conflict models r us.

And politics aside (or at least in abatement), when I read the phrase ‘mission statement’ (especially in ‘ironic’ quotation marks) I reach for my gun. I know that’s just the Deleuzian fascist in me, and thankfully this isn’t America so I don’t have a firearms licence and only own an Uzi replica air pistol for shooting the cats when they shit in my garden - yet, there but for the grace of hard earned and precariously maintained parliamentary democracy, go all of us.

And to maintain the shoot ‘em up theme I ask that we consider the ‘Der Kunstlump’ polemic from Grosz and Heartfield. primarily because it’s a very fine word to say.

Interested to see if MM develops mostly in order to exploit the merits of failure in pursuit of success via marketable biographies (as proposed in Howard Singerman’s ‘Art Subjects’). Or can it come to embrace/celebrate/relish/endorse failure at a more profound level concomitant with Beckett’s demand to ‘fail, fail again, fail better’?

Answers on a CV/post-it.

A Note on Gapping - Tom Trevatt

For Consideration in regards to the presentation on 26th Feb

Indeed a certain requirement is that we present a body of research/information that is as communicable as possible to an audience/public. What, of course, is inherent in communication is the very communication of communication's lack of absolute communication. The gapping always already produced by communication is, I believe, the interesting part of what we are dealing with, not necessarily producing a performance piece that represents non-communication or lack of communication. Of course the presentation becomes performative, in JL Austin's sense, in that its saying performs the presentation of it. The question is, how do we present, pass on, speak, whilst also speaking of the lack inherent in the very act itself? I think this is how the performance of the presentation should go. If however, there is a move towards a 'highjack' of this form with a performance element, as suggested in a previous comment, then i'm all for it... In the name of difference. The highjack, or whatever it comes to be known, the antagonism, whatever, needs to be fully theoretically realized too, otherwise it could just look bad, theatrical etc.

Also, its 2.50 in the morning and i need to sleep now.

taking positions

the birthing of MM is proving an event so far..with everyone bristling with brio, rabbiting on, tome thumping and generally jostling for position ....so far the dynamics do not disappoint only the number of contenders...i'm having conversations regarding MM with people which seem to demonstrate something about the 'Laws of Hostility' (Pierre Saint-Amand) being theoretically proposed as key but which appear to be unfolding in any case as people react /or not.

If we are not attempting to achieve consensus (ironically agreed) and as the plan is to have no plan but rather mutate within a field of difference then the constitution of that field (participants) will be determined not only by the laws of hostility, predicated and arguably implied by the terms of reciprocity, but also by natural (de)selection....that said it is still early days and the ways and means of participation are not yet fully established....

The next face to face meeting (friday 18th Jan) may prove to be an interesting one.

Attempt (2.0) How to Present? - Robert Dingle

Attempt (2.0) How to Present?

The work this attempt proposes, is to initiate and encourage a discourse that addresses an invitation we have received to present the project: Manqué Manqué at Goldsmiths College, curating studio* (26^th Feb 08).

The premise for the invitation to participate in Tuesday Meeting (a weekly meeting organised by MFA Curating students at Goldsmiths), is centred around the opportunity to present current projects engaging critically with those on the course, while concurrently providing an instance to cultivate the project further.

So, how to present?

Based upon Henry Petroski’s comparison of the PowerPoint presentation to a modern Plato’s cave, in his book entitled Success through Failure, I wanted to propose a beginning:

The allegory of the cave updated to modern times might be set as follows. A group of people seated in a cavernous room, restrained by a prevailing paradigm. The chairs in which they sit are rigidly attached to the floor and to each other, the images on the screen before them rivet the group’s eyes to it. They are watching things that are being projected from a booth in the back of the room, which they sometimes forget they are in. The images on the screen are accompanied by commentary coming from a disembodied voice issuing from speakers around the room. The images and words are sharp and bright and are the reality of the moment. They fade in and fade out like shadows on a night of patchy clouds.

^ * The curating studio is a room measuring approx: W-13ft x L-18ft x H-10ft. Within there are three tables, each measuring approx: W-3.5ft x L-5ft x H-3ft and around 18 chairs. The room is separated by a step running across the space horizontally. The tables and chairs take up one half the space within the room. There are windows opposite the entrance and immediately to the left (thought these do not receive much light). We are able to hire equipment for the media centre, should we request to.



Keven 1

The emasculated inspector
A strange tear welled and an impending sense of vermicelli. Who is this con of whom I have heard oft? In such rudite company I fear a part. A stand in. Elevated maybe to that of extra. If I should be so bold as to flatus quietly, discretely, will my companions note the nakedness of my indiscretion or ignore it. Can I say? I have vertigo.

Attempt (1) - Robert Dingle

Attempt (1)

Having worked collaboratively with Tom Trevatt over the past two years, we have produced, to date, three consecutive projects: would silence the apology, lighting projects and untitled (equivalence). Manque Manque is to be the first exhibition we have collaboratively curated that has originated from an invitation, as opposed to arrived at under our own initiation.

Although our working relationship has been the result of a similarity, a comparison of interests, we have, as often as possible sought to avoid what results in Hegelian dialectics i.e. a consensus. Working to avoid a total synthesis, a complete reduction of the gap between individual difference, we have attempted to establish our personal interests within this project.

This means instating an imperative that maintains a sense of antagonism, in a comparative sense described by Laclau and Mouffe in their understanding of a fully functional democracy.

A democratic society is one in which relations of conflict are sustained, not erased. Without antagonism there is only the imposed consensus of authoritarian order – a total suppression of debate and discussion, which is inimical to democracy.

Claire Bishop, Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, October Magazine, Oct 2004

It is through reinstating a sense of antagonism that I see the idea of an ‘interruptive curatorial practice’ being developed and maintained. As Tom would come to view this practice as ‘a practice that comes to perform the gap, comes to fragment temporally or physically the experience of viewing art’, which is something that we have developed together throughout our projects, I would also extend this further and suggest that an ‘interruptive curatorial practice’ is dependant, for its success, upon the work and the context in which it is shown.

What is at stake should this gap close? Reading from Levinas it is the idea of difference and, in particular, his understanding of ‘the other’ itself, which is at stake. Contending that Western metaphysics and indeed Western civilization, ‘exhibits an often horrific propensity to reduce everything fortuitous, foreign and enigmatic to conditions of intelligibility.’ the West makes constant attempts to understand what remains outside of cognition in attempting to bring the subject under control.

Although I believe in the sense of radical democracy that Laclau and Mouffe discuss and that Tom proposes we adopt, what happens if we all agree or consent upon communicating in this fashion? We would have to agree, not by a process of consensus because after all, would an agreement to not form consensuses fall back in upon itself?

If you agree/disagree then write/don’t a response/nothing here/somewhere else.

It is from this beginning that my concerns lie. It is not my intention to provide an unmitigated list of interests or prerogatives for this project, but rather to treat this as a space between dialogue, others and my own, which I can inform concomitantly as the project develops. Working through the idea of lack, failure, gapping and attempts I am proposing a series of undertakings to come to terms with Manqué Manqué.

Robert Dingle