Dirty Yoga = Transcendental Nihilist

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The second video in Transcendental Nihilist Series features Yoga in a dirty squat kitchen.

Conceptual Discussion for Transcendental Nihilist Video Series

“The true nihilists are the ones who oppose nihilism with their more and more faded positivities, the ones who are thus conspiring with all extant malice, and eventually with the destructive principle itself.” Theodor W. Adorno in Negative Dialectics[1]

If Adorno could meditate would he become a Transcendental Nihilist? Meditation atop a mountain or meditation atop a 6-lane highway? Stillness in Chaos becomes Extinction in Chaos. I empty my mind and meditate in scenes of our extinction, in an attempt to be a Transcendental Nihilist. Traditionally the three sounds of AUM represent form and shape; formless and shapelessness and neither form nor shapelessness.[2] This three pronged plug dissolving into the negative of negative and positive also symbolises Adorno's negative dialectics - there is negation, affirmation and something taking away from all of it. Nihilism refuses any religious or spiritual transcendence. However Ray Brassier introduces transcendence to nihilism by coding our thoughts as thoughts of extinction. So, my thoughts are not one with the universe but without (ie. extinction). I pursue Adorno’s true nihilism, the silent mantras fade in positivity over stasis and duration. The video series so far includes settings of a 6 lane highway, a dirty squat kitchen, cleared forest/pastures and a laundromat.

Adorno formulated negative dialectics as recourse to the paradox of a nihilist’s nothingness. Statements of reason are further opened by moving from a necessity of the whole to adding a statement with contingency, for example-instead of- ‘Human beings are a product of evolution (not creation)’ -Negative dialectics states- ‘Human beings are a product of evolution (but evolution is not there to create human beings).’ We simply have to make it an open rather than a closed process. Adorno’s problem with the ‘whole’ and ‘universal’ and ‘becoming’ nature of Hegelian Dialectics led him to formulate Negative Dialectics, an ‘un-whole,’ ‘retrospective’ unfolding of history.[3] Adorno’s ontological quest turns back on time and introduces contingency and subjectivity to how we got ‘here’. The video works between distinguishing and disappearing the moving and still forms, thereby symbolising the negative in the negative and positive space and opening a gateway beyond formalist reason of a ‘whole site.’ Whilst Adorno remained closed to transcendence (a form of religious idealism,) he does point to how it can come about, “People who sigh with relief when life shows some similarity to life, for once-when it is not, as Karl Krasus put it, kept going only for production’s and consumption’s sake – will eagerly and directly take this for a sign of transcendent presence.”

Ray Brassier, a contemporary social theorist and Nihilist, gets around the Nihilist refusal of transcendence by focusing on extinction. It is not a psychological death drive it is transcendental, because it is out of our human experience but it is also immanent – in how our extinction pervades our whole universe and thought.[4] Human thoughts stems not from being, but is driven from our extinction, “Thinking has interests that do not coincide with living.”[5] In the Transcendental Nihilist video series I modify my practice of meditation, emptying my mind, in order to connect with extinction not communion with the universe. The settings of the video series are ‘real world/immanent extinction’ – a pervasive apocalypse in the most boring sense of the real world.

“Authentic culture directly resists commodification and punishes audiences for expecting to be entertained.”[6] This is another tip from Adorno on true Nihilism. The long duration, blurriness of the video series, Transcendental Nihilist and simple installation resists commodification, by resisting beauty, ease of manufacture and value added status. It also punishes audiences with its lack of visual clarity, duration and ‘boringness.’ The installed videos are consumed in an unsatisfactory/incomplete manner – the viewer could watch one or all for 2 -3 minutes with no sense of completion or satisfaction. The viewer’s thoughts are looking for aesthetic completion in order to fend off the pervasive extinction.

How do I signify the Transcendental Nihilist? The videos capture fading positivity by using a silent repetition of an idealist mantra; the setting, stasis and audio relay my fading positivity over a long (unconsumeable) duration, it culminates in my conspiring with the destructive principle itself, by meditating on Ray Brassier’s ‘thought is extinction.’ Noone could say if Adorno would agree with Brassier on Transcendental Nihilism, but my video series signifies a potential collaboration between the two. Using candor and callousness, identified graces of a nihilist,[7] the videos weave a blurry, fly-on-the-wall-with-nothing-going-on sense to guided meditations on the form of extinction.

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[1] Theodor W. Adorno Negative Dialectics (New York: The Continuum 1973 Original 1966) pp135-145.

[2] Satyarth Prakāsh by Swāmi Dayānand Saraswati (1884) in “Aum The Origin of Life” by Srimad Bhagwadgeetamruta Geetyoga. Accessed Nov 3, 2014. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.212420198797168.50622.202153136490541; also in ‘Aum’ Wikipedia. Last modified Oct 25, 2014 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om

[3] Theodor W. Adorno Negative Dialectics (New York: The Continuum 1973 Original 1966) pp35-45.

[4] Ray Brassier Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2007) xiii

[5] Ray Brassier Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2007) xi

[6] Theodor W. Adorno Negative Dialectics (New York: The Continuum 1973 Original 1966) p10

[7] Ibid p137

'The Artist is Present' Performance and Screen Installation at Other Film Festival 2014

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This Wednesday night, I present a performance at Boggo Road Gaol (Jail). My work is about discipline, about architecture and surveillance - panopticism - the minority watching the majority. Whereas you may remember my 'Legally Lolita' performance in Indonesia, which also redresses discipline via re-enactments of my father being a Corrective Services Officer, Policeman, Security Guard and father; this performance is more about Institutions and how they instil discipline.

Conceptual Discussion -

Currently our collective life force is shaped and organised by many institutions. Foucault argues the guiding force behind these institutions is the “culture of discipline,” a system of discipline honed within jails, the panopticon/panopticism, the unequal gaze, the observation of the many by the few. [1]  The prisoner could never be sure if they were being watched at any given moment, for one is less likely to break the law, if they believe they are being watched. My ‘The Artist is Present…’ performance and screen work repurposes the architecture of Boggo Road Gaol to redress the ‘unequal gaze’ in surveillance of the incarcerated, whilst at the same time introducing the possibility of psychic interference in surveillance, by sharing a special mental and physical state of intense concentration with each audience member. I sit in a single confinement jail cell and invite the audience to sit with me, one-by-one, in a non-verbal concentrated gaze.

Panopticism (a social theory devised by Michel Foucault) is a central concept of punishment in jails in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries. It is “the general principle of a new 'political anatomy' whose object and end are not the relations of sovereignty but the relations of discipline.”[2] The panopticon is represented by an image of single cells within a transparent, circular cage, with its high towers powerful and knowing; it describes a project for perfect discipline. Practically, it encloses the inmate from companions; it is lit up for the supervisor; the inmate is seen, but he does not see. The inmate is the object of information, never a subject in communication.[3] Hence the major effect of the panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power - “Bentham [founder of panopticism] laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable. Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so.”[4] The Panopticon ensured the internalization of the disciplinary individuality within the bodies being controlled.[5]

Boggo Road Gaol’s architecture of the historic Number Two Division still holds the panoptic ‘culture of discipline.’ ‘The Artist is Present’ subverts the ‘culture of discipline’ in the jail’s panoptic architecture by opening up the jail cell to 1) holding an intimate moment between two people in a solitary space; and 2) presenting an external, non verbal one-on-one ‘equal gaze,’ opposed to the unequal gaze between the always visible prisoner and sometimes visible warden and 3) opening up the insides and circuitry of surveillance technology.

A one-on-one performance in a place which once confined an inmate in solitary reverses the tradition and function of the architecture of a jail cell. There is no punishment and no need to escape written within the walls, whilst it is also not a meeting place, a muted gaze indicates a place for communal reflection to remember the injustice of incarceration and acknowledge deaths and abuse in custody. 

An equal gaze suggests no hierarchy, no one is physically higher than the other, each person is equally lit, each person is in plain clothes and can see each other fully. This open disclosure of equality is a refreshing experience as we find ourselves herded in institutions by uniformed figures of authority or at worst in a jail, peered at by a visible but unverifiable figure of power. Are they really looking at you? Well, in ‘The Artist is Present,’ I am really looking at you but have no visible signs/symbols of power, in terms of your escape from the jail and punishment, I might as well be invisible..

The ‘culture of discipline’ in jails has evolved - zooming from 1901, when Number Two was built, to now -and panopticism in jails use technology for its surveillance, no longer using architecture. Boggo Road Gaol’s Number Two Division shut in 1989 and was not remodelled.[6] It’s panoptic discipline definitely lies in its architecture, but ‘The Artist is Present’ also redresses the panoptic control of surveillance. Currently in society, panopticism has advanced through technology and we have surveillance so tight we could predict what’s going to happen. The surveillance is hidden but we know it’s there, we have CCTVs everywhere, and even now, private Institutions (not the Government) monitor our purchases and whereabouts (increasingly by self disclosure, like Facebook). The screen work for ‘The Artist is Present’ uses a scattered plethora of deconstructed screens with exposed circuitry to present a recording of ‘The Artist is Present’ press-performance from the day before. In doing so, documenting a staged performance for media, rather than recording real-life transforms the function of surveillance to a dull entertainment in a classic V is for Vendetta, Fight Club anarchist movie plot kind of way. Therefore IRL, the baddies are getting away with it.

‘The Artist Is Present’ wishes to undermine the panopticon’s method of surveillance technology, and brings a handycam and audio recorder into Boggo Road’s Number Two. I believe we can cause spiritual (natural, non-physical) interference with these technologies so that we can see and hear things that the Warden, the Policeman, the Prime Minister, the Miner, the CEO do not see and hear. I believe this electronic interference is only observable post-moment. I have previously tested a group’s ability to manifest a psychic interference in technology.[7] To avoid disrespect and kitsch, no motto/model of any particular former prisoner will be used as a guide for psychic energy. So therefore, the audience is invited to simply sit opposite me. I posit the power of deep concentration between two people is enough to create a disturbance.  In the screen work, the surveillance is monitored for any electronic disturbance in the moment and post-recording.

‘The Artist is Present’ performance and screen work transforms panopticism’s ‘visible and unverifiable’ to ‘invisible and verifiable.’ The panoptic architecture’s and my own power function becomes invisible and the presence of two people at equal gaze, verifiable and re-shown as entertainment rather than surveillance; whilst a deconstructed panoptic technology is used to verify any electronic interference that was invisible/undetected at the time. Punishment turns into an act of psychic and physical creation, an intense physical and mental concentration between two people in a de-comissioned jail cell, in an art Festival in Brisbane, Australia. The subversion of panopticism’s architecture and surveillance technologies is paramount for those concerned with civil liberties in our neo-liberal environment. As we see these methods formerly used by Governments to punish are increasingly implemented in order to ‘manage’ us by Private Institutions in detention centres, schools, art museums, shopping malls and online security.

Physical Description:

‘The Artist is Present’ [Screen 30min] One-by-one I invite the other artists and media in Institutional Capture to sit opposite me in a single confinement jail cell. Our gaze is concentrated and non-verbal. An audio recorder, white noise generator and handy cam are present to document any electrical interference that may occur. The documentation is screened at Other Film Festival ‘Institutional Capture.’

‘The Artist is Present’ [Performance 30min] Audience members are guided one-by-one to sit opposite me in a single confinement jail cell. As we concentrate, I try to psychically manifest an electrical interference in the surveillance equipment that will be post-recording observed. A glitch in surveillance.

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[1] Michel Foucault Discipline and Punish (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977) pp200-228)

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Bentham in Michel Foucault 227

[5] ‘Discipline and Punish’ Wikipedia. Accessed Nov 9, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish

[6] ‘Boggo Road Gaol History’ Boggo Road Gaol. Accessed Nov 9, 2014. http://boggoroadgaol.com/history/

[7] Nicola Morton ‘The Spider in the Machine’ Freerange Vol.8 (2014: 56-64)

Review: Love Hypnosis Exchange

I AM POSTING THIS REVIEW TO THE TOP OF THE BLOG, BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO PERFORM LOVE HYPNOSIS EXCHANGE, AT QUEENSLAND COLLEGE OF ART, FEB 26 2013, AS PART OF ORIENTATION WEEK...

Review from Labyrinth City

Nicola Morton is an inspired globe trotting-but-locally-based artist with, lately, an interest in time travel, hypnosis, physics, AI, memories, happiness (really hard to pin-point here) and an obsessive streak easily confused with an encounter with the Pink Light… Focusing on her live shows however, they (and like her installations/rituals) are entirely inviting & unpretentious with equal parts of injected confusion & humor, the complex undercurrent of truly inventive ideas set up against a celebratory, near-jubilant backdrop of manic-enthusiasm and the audience being as big of part of the performance as herself through mandatory group participation. From a writing & musical background too, mind, of very selected note a band back in the Euro states, journals and a daedalian arrangement & composition set against a multi-tiered set of rules, a la Cobra, in Life Is A Rubik’s Cube.

Impossible to capture with just a microphone, I’ll have to explain this one: Nicola’s presenting ‘Love Hypnosis Exchange’ – a group activity performance involving several hundred stickers, rules, a/v, breath, hypnosis, your heart. Although this performance was done last week at the Judith Wright Centre tonight’s the authoritative as she skipped a few segments last time: Nicola asks the audience to synchronize our heart beats and breathing so that we are all as one here, we yell ‘crack’ each time our heart beats whilst she does a short, quiet improvised piece with a bowed guitar. The third segment sees her request the audience take a handful of stickers each, about a hundred I think, and to listen to her instructions: She’s going to count to eight whilst you spin around toward people and then a loud beep will sound signifying that you have to swap stickers onto the closest person. There’s going to be a hundred eight-second spins, one taking one second to complete a revolution so yes as it was pointed out eight hundred revolutions. On the ceiling there’s projected visuals and a timer, noise too but I’m focused on the exchanges on the floor. Nicola spins around and through the audience with a keyboard & microphone until the end.

Photos by Isrohan Alvarez and Rin Healy

The thing I took from this performance is happiness; I couldn’t stop smiling. The manipulation: Breathing, your heart beat in synchronicity with the people around you there’s a sense of belonging (who doesn’t want that?) and swapping stickers, or anything, coupled with the confusion of the show itself (bonding together trying to figure it out) you’re bound to the room’s collective effervescence forcing you to realize that there’s really nothing between us at all – any barriers once created by our stupid preconceptions, opinions of one another can be quashed by simply exchanging a smile & a silly little sticker. I don’t know what you thought of it or was though.