September 14, 2005
The Idiotic Dots Of The Whatnots
by Jerome du Bois
I love the very letterforms you read now, reader. The Greco-Roman-derived alphabet, from Avant-Garde to Vedana. When I make art, I often use words, cutting out letters or stamping them or printing them or writing them out or carving them. You may take these enduring forms, these 26 uniquely-grouped inhabitants of the Western World, and, as any teacher knows, you can distort them almost beyond recognition, and yet we recognize them --partly by context, yes, but often just because they're so strong in themselves. I respect them because they have remained fairly stable amid so much instability, and indeed have played their crucial parts in explaining that instability, and so much else besides. They are faithful stewards of meaning, even when the meanings of words change. I love the letters of my native alphabet.
Perhaps devotees of other alphabets --Cyrillic, Hindi, Chinese, Hebrew-- feel as I do, and so perhaps will share my anger at an artwork by Brazilian Rivane Neuenschwander now being exhibited at the 51st Venice Biennalle.
Its title: [. . . ]
Here is a photo, followed by a brief description and micro-gush by curator Elisabeth Sussman in Artforum:
At the Arsenale, everything "looks good" (in a late-'90s sort of way). The installation is austerely elegant, but there is often an element of entertainment. Take, for instance, [. . . ], 2004, an alluring installation of brightly colored walls and tables proffering old typewriters, outmoded technology made even more redundant by modification: No matter which letter is pressed, a period will be struck. This engaging work by Brazilian Rivane Neuenschwander, which invites viewers to type (meaningless) messages and pin them on the wall, playfully points to the ultimate emptiness of technology, its quick obsolescence, the hollowness at the core of the vast preponderance of communications it facilitates.
I will show the ultimate stupidity and hollowness at the core of Ms. Sussman's final sentence below. But first, let us consider this desecration in more detail.
Behold the damned thing itself, before the ideas surrounding it. Maybe you have to be a certain age to be outraged at how the artist has destroyed these old typewriters. It's well-known police lore that the physical signatures of unique typewriters are strong enough to convict criminals with their traces. Each typewriter, after a bit of use, develops its own profile --all because of those strong fingers, driven by those busy minds. When I was in high school I was the best typist in typing class, despite the fact that I'm missing a joint on one of my fingers. When I graduated, I also graduated from a stiff stately old Royal to a slick tomato-colored Selectric, with the bouncing typeballs. Catherine had a Hermes Rocket identical to the one in the picture above. She hauled it everywhere for years. Lots of writers still use old typewriters, even in the 21st Century. People collect them the way others collect record players and radios. From their platens writers coaxed, caressed, and hammered meaning into the world, from orders to love letters to spy codes to novels and poems.
What the artist has done, or asked her interns to do, is lift up every key and --where the little letter looks up at you backwards, like a soldier at attention always happily ready for duty-- had them grind that stubborn shape down with a Dremel tool and fine file until only a dot is left. Every letter, number, and punctuation sign, except the period, of course. Grind them down into the stupid point, the simplest sign in the universe, which goes nowhere and is the merest mark.
To me, it's like pouring acid on fingers.
But Rivane Neuwenschwander wants to erase all distinctiveness, individuality, identity, hierarchy, and meaning from the world. Whatever anybody types doesn't matter a bit. Nobody matters. Nothing we say matters. Everything is ellipsis, the slack-jawed in-between --dot dot dot, fill it in with whatnot.
Why bother even writing about this mean and snickering thing, since it's already a fait accompli, signed off on by all the poobahs?
Because everybody counts. Because everybody counts or nobody counts.
Because communicating matters. Getting across to others gets us further into the future. To mock that standard, to mock that need, to mock that defining characteristic of humans, reveals the weakness that drives all these postmodern artists: they hate people, themselves most of all.
Postmodernism is dead. Meaning matters. I'll show the shrunken heart of this cruel and inhuman artwork, and the tired, jaded sensibility that surrounds and sanctions it.
Ms. Sussman wrote:
This engaging work by Brazilian Rivane Neuenschwander, which invites viewers to type (meaningless) messages and pin them on the wall, playfully points to the ultimate emptiness of technology, its quick obsolescence, the hollowness at the core of the vast preponderance of communications it facilitates.
Go on. Step up to the table. Sit down. Think of something to type. I don't know . . . anything. But why? Just rattle the keys a little. Cute, huh? Everything is . . . everything comes out . . . you're muted so far down you're just like that guy over there . . .
Cute. Engaging. Playful.
the ultimate emptiness of technology
I read on my computer monitor, which is connected to a processor which is connected to eighty jillion connections all over the Earth, a literal world of information, history, images, and conversations, jamming the broadband from end to end. Empty? No. Only Sussman's head is empty. The world brought to us by technology is growing in knowledge and wisdom by the nanosecond. She can stay behind, though.
its quick obsolescence
The manual typewriter served the United States and the world from 1867 up through two world wars and beyond. Like the Colt 1911 .45 pistol, it was an uncomplaining workhorse that saved thousands of hours of labor and movement, and saved lives due to its accuracy and clarity.
the hollowness at the core of the vast preponderance of communications it facilitates
This woman wrote and supervised the production of two books at least, from MIT Press no less; one about Keith Haring and one about Nan Goldin. Is this what she thinks of her work, and the work of all of her technical and editorial collaborators at MIT? If so, consider --with horror, I hope--the corrosive nihilism eating at this woman's soul.
Everything means. Everything matters. And that's why I stand up for battered old mutilated manual typewriters.
Posted by Jerome at September 14, 2005 09:06 AM | TrackBack