Rem and Marina by Photographer Hal
# 07 from the series Flesh Love
Japanese photographer Haruhiko Kawaguchi (aka Photographer Hal) has been vacuum-packing lubed-up couples since 2009. The idea, he says, is to bring two people as physically close as possible and then hermetically seal them in their own world; united in love, united in life, united in death.
I know exactly how D. H. Lawrence would describe this - egoism a deux; two people self-consciously contained in their own idealism and obscene personal intimacy to the point they can no longer move freely or even breathe.*
For like Rawdon Lilly, his fictional mouthpiece in Aaron's Rod (1922), Lawrence hates couples who pose as one and stick together like two jujube lozenges. Ultimately, they must recognise the intrinsically singular nature of being and be able to stand apart; to know that, at the core, one is alone and the heart beats alone in its own silence:
"'In so far as I am I, and only I am I, and I am only I ... I am inevitably and eternally alone, and it is my last blessedness to know it, and to accept it, and to live with this as the core of my self- knowledge.'"
And so, whilst there's a time to love and to seek out others, so too is there a time to leave off loving altogether and recognise that two of the greatest things in life are fresh air and solitude.
Now, as far as I remember, at this point in the novel someone tells Lilly that he's getting too metaphysical for anyone to understand. And, it's true, he is venturing onto philosophical ground - indeed, one might even argue that he's anticipating Graham Harman's object-oriented ontology, which I shall discuss in more detail in part two of this post.
For one of the key - and most challenging - ideas of the latter is that all objects, including human beings, are essentially self-sealed or vacuum-packed, never to be known, never to be violated. That is to say, objects always keep some aspect of their being withdrawn in darkness and can never be fully defined or exhausted by their relations; they can never be touched, as Lawrence would say, on the quick.
I'm not sure that Harman would term this hidden element of the thing in itself, as Lilly does, the Holy Ghost or Godhead, but he's certainly not adverse to spooky language and I suspect he'd agree that it's the innermost, integral and unique element. Or, to put it another way, the object's singular destiny; that volcanic core of the self that can never be lost or surrendered - not even in the name of Love ...
See: D. H. Lawrence, Aaron's Rod, ed. Mara Kalnins, (Cambridge University Press, 1988). Lawrence uses the phrase egoism a deux in ch. 9. The lines quoted from Rawdon Lilly are taken from ch. 18. and the words italicised in the last paragraph are taken from the final chapter, 21.
*Note: Social psychologist and theorist Erich Fromm famously discusses the concept of egoism a deux in The Art of Loving (1956). According to Fromm, it's a mistaken attempt to find refuge on the part of alienated individuals from an otherwise unbearable sense of aloneness, masquerading as true love - something which, according to Fromm, requires learning to care for all mankind. Obviously, this is anathema to Lawrence, who loathes the universal love ideal even more than he does a vain attempt at complete intimacy formed between two individuals.
For one of the key - and most challenging - ideas of the latter is that all objects, including human beings, are essentially self-sealed or vacuum-packed, never to be known, never to be violated. That is to say, objects always keep some aspect of their being withdrawn in darkness and can never be fully defined or exhausted by their relations; they can never be touched, as Lawrence would say, on the quick.
I'm not sure that Harman would term this hidden element of the thing in itself, as Lilly does, the Holy Ghost or Godhead, but he's certainly not adverse to spooky language and I suspect he'd agree that it's the innermost, integral and unique element. Or, to put it another way, the object's singular destiny; that volcanic core of the self that can never be lost or surrendered - not even in the name of Love ...
See: D. H. Lawrence, Aaron's Rod, ed. Mara Kalnins, (Cambridge University Press, 1988). Lawrence uses the phrase egoism a deux in ch. 9. The lines quoted from Rawdon Lilly are taken from ch. 18. and the words italicised in the last paragraph are taken from the final chapter, 21.
*Note: Social psychologist and theorist Erich Fromm famously discusses the concept of egoism a deux in The Art of Loving (1956). According to Fromm, it's a mistaken attempt to find refuge on the part of alienated individuals from an otherwise unbearable sense of aloneness, masquerading as true love - something which, according to Fromm, requires learning to care for all mankind. Obviously, this is anathema to Lawrence, who loathes the universal love ideal even more than he does a vain attempt at complete intimacy formed between two individuals.
To read part two of this post on the ethics and politics of object-oriented ontology, click here.
