Showing posts with label stephen alexander. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stephen alexander. Show all posts

4 Mar 2025

Who Is Stephen Alexander? A Guest Post by Sasha Thanassa

Stephen Alexander 
A Non-Selfie Selfie (2025) 
 
And how do you see yourself when looking in the bathroom mirror 
through someone else's eyes? 
 
 
I. 
 
Who (or what) is Stephen Alexander, the shadowy figure who blogs at Torpedo the Ark?
 
The multiple possibilities that he himself has playfully suggested in the past include: artist, anarchist, and antichrist; punk, pirate, poet, pagan ... More recently, he has declared himself to be a darkly enlightened philosopher-provocateur whose concerns are no longer with sex, style, and subversion, but more with silence, secrecy, and seduction. 
 
Using these and other terms that arise from within his own writings - as well as from the work of other figures to whom he often refers - I will attempt here to give a brief impressionistic sketch of someone who, like Foucault, neither wishes to self-identify as a unified subject nor feels obliged to remain forever the same [1].       
 
 
II.
 
Again, by his own admission, there are two names that have shaped Alexander's thinking above all others: Nietzsche and D. H. Lawrence; neither of whom he entirely embraces, but both of whom provide him with the critical weapons and crucial conceptual tools for the fight against moral idealism (i.e., the belief that the Good, the True, and the Beautiful are the highest of values and fundamentally connected) and modern humanism (i.e., the belief that behind everything sits the kind and reasonable figure of Man).    
 
Working in the entrails of Nietzsche and Lawrence more like a postmodern haruspex than a forensic pathologist, Alexander has managed on Torpedo the Ark to produce an idiosyncratic (and intertextual) brand of fiction-theory that suspends the genre distinction between philosophy and literature [2]
 
Arguably, it is this mode of language and thought that has enabled him to move across other established categories and freely discuss an almost infinite variety of ideas, experiences, and events in a creative and profoundly superficial manner that is always alert to the play (and permissiveness) of language.  
 

III. 

Another name we might mention is that of Simon Solomon; more than a mere commentator on posts or a sometimes contributor, Solomon is a very real (often hostile) presence on Torpedo the Ark and a vital interlocutor. 

It's sometimes hard to tell whether Solomon is Alexander's shadow or vice versa; who's the Jekyll, who's the Hyde (or are they equally monstrous)? In queer ontological alliance - if there is such a thing -  Alexander and Solomon seem fated to remain the best of frenemies [3], each presumably drawing some benefit from their relationship, despite the mutual antagonism [4]


IV.

But isn't Alexander just another in a long line of reversed Platonists

Perhaps - but what's wrong with that? We need more not less such people. A reversed Plato may still be, as Hannah Arendt pointed out, a reversed Plato [5], but that's better than an unreversed Plato.
 
And besides, as Derrida indicated, the first task of deconstruction has to be reversal (i.e., the locating and overturning of oppositions within a text). That may not be enough in itself - a reversal is not the same as a revaluation - but it's a start on the road toward a new way of thinking.
 
And so, like Lawrence, Alexander encourages his reader to think in terms of immanence rather than transcendence and to climb down Pisgah [6]; to affirm appearances and the natural world of scarlet poppies rather than fantasise about a world above (and/or beyond) this one in which there are eternal white flowers and other Ideal Forms.   

And like Deleuze - another thinker whom Alexander often refers to - he perverts Plato by siding with the Sophists, the Cynics, the Stoics "and the fluttering chimeras of Epicurus" [7].  
 
 
V.

So, have I answered the question with which I opened this post? 
 
Probably not. 
 
Perhaps all I've done is refer to a number of proper names to whom Alexander himself often refers. But then, these proper names serve a crucial textual purpose and contain within them a series of associations (and connotations) that allow us to see how Torpedo the Ark unfolds within a much wider philosophical and literary history and an intertextual space. 
 
When Alexander refers to himself as a Lawrentian, for example, he's not identifying with Lawrence as an extratextual being, but evoking a certain style of thinking and writing.  
 
Using proper names is also, of course, a way of dispersing and disguising the self; like Nietzsche, Alexander wants to be able to declare himself all the names in history [8] - onymic ambiguity rather than unified authorial presence is his aim.  

 
Notes
 
[1] In his introduction to The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault famously writes: "I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order." 
      See The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (Pantheon Books, 1972), p. 17.
 -
[2] This has been a long time goal for Alexander; see the introduction to his PhD thesis Outside the Gate (University of Warwick, 2000): click here
      Admittedly, he problematically writes here about dissolving lines of distinction, whereas in his later writings, influenced by Derrida, he speaks more about troubling (or curdling) these lines and concedes that the deconstructive objective is not the dissolving or permanent suspension of all oppositions, because, ultimately, they are structurally necessary to produce meaning.  
      
[3] The term frenemy - a portmanteau of 'friend' and 'enemy' - could have been invented for Alexander and Solomon, although Jessica Mitford claimed that it had been coined by one of her sisters when they were children for a particularly dull acquaintance; see her article 'The Best of Frenemies' in the Daily Mail (August 1977). It can also be found in her book, Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking (NYRB Classics, 2010), or read online by simply clicking here.       
      
[4] Interestingly, Freud recognised that a close friend and a worthy enemy are equally indispensble to psychological wellbeing and have not infrequently been one and the same person. See Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (Pelican / Penguin Books, 1964) p. 37.
 
[5] See Hannah Arendt, 'Thinking and Moral Considerations: A Lecture', in Social Research, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 417-446, (The John Hopkins University Press, Autumn 1971), where she writes: 
      "The quest for meaning, which relentlessly dissolves and examines anew all accepted doctrines and rules, can at every moment turn against itself, as it were, produce a reversal of the old values, and declare these as 'new values'. This, to an extent, is what Nietzsche did when he reversed Platonism, forgetting that a reversed Plato is still Plato ..." (435)
      A revised version of this can also be found in Thinking, the first volume of her two-volume posthumously published work The Life of the Mind, ed. Mary Mccarthy (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977-78). 
 
[6] See the essay by D. H. Lawrence 'Climbing Down Pisgah', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 223-229.
 
[7] Michel Foucault, 'Theatrum Philosophicum', in the Essential Works 2: Aesthetics, ed. James D. Faubion (Penguin Books, 2000), p. 346.

[8] In a letter to Jakob Burckhardt dated 6 January, 1889 (although postmarked January 5th), Nietzsche claims that by becoming every name in history, he (paradoxically) fights the reduction to anonymity and generality. 
      See his Selected Letters, ed. and trans. Christopher Middleton (University of Chicago Press, 1969), p. 346.
 
 

1 Mar 2025

An Open Letter to Simon Solomon from Stephen Alexander

 
Stephen Alexander / Simon Solomon


Dear Simon,

Thank you for your remarks on a recent post entitled 'Yabba Dabba Doo!' (28 Feb 2025). 

As I think you deserve a somewhat longer (and more considered) response than the comments section allows - and as the Little Greek suggested the following remarks may interest a wider audience - I've decided to publish them here in the form of an open letter ...    


Firstly, to answer your question regarding Barthes and nihilism, I suggest you read Shane Weller's essay entitled 'Active Philology: Barthes and Nietzsche', in French Studies, Vol. 73, Issue 2 (April, 2019), pp. 217-233. You can find a revised version of the essay on Kent University's Academic Repository:


As some readers may not have the time or inclination to read the above text in full, here's the abstract which, I trust, will allow them to see why Barthes might indeed be considered a nihilist in the Nietzschean sense:  

"While the importance of Nietzsche to Barthes has long been recognized, with Barthes himself being the first to acknowledge it, this essay argues that Nietzsche's influence lies behind almost all of the major aspects of Barthes's mode of reading and writing in the 1970s, a mode that Barthes describes as 'active philology'. At the heart of this active philology is a cancellation of meaning that makes of Barthes's later critical practice a form of active nihilism in the Nietzschean sense. Exploring the various facets of this active philology in order to highlight the ways in which Barthes both follows and deviates from Nietzsche, this essay proposes an understanding of Barthes the active philologist as the incarnation of what Nietzsche terms the 'last nihilist' - and, crucially, one for whom any kind of Nietzschean overcoming of nihilism is anathema."

Even without reading Weller's essay, I would've thought, Simon, that the phrase La mort de l'auteur - title of a famous essay written by Barthes in 1967 - provides a huge clue as to what drives his critical approach ...

Secondly, you're right, Nietzsche does say in The Anti-Christ that the word 'Christianity' is already a misunderstanding and that in reality "there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross" [1]. But if you were to continue reading the same section of the above work (39), you would find the following important lines:  

"It is false to the point of absurdity to see in a belief [...] the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian: only Christian practice, a life such as he who died on the Cross lived, is Christian. ... Even today such a life is possible, for certain men even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity will be possible at all times. ... Not a belief, but a doing, above all a not-doing of many things, a different being." [2]

As ever with Nietzsche, there are lots of subtle twists and turns and one has to be wary about taking a line, a paragraph, or even an entire section as providing his definitive position. He puts it this way; he puts it that way; then he puts it another way entirely. The point is one can be a Christian, providing you don't turn a practice into a doctrine; i.e., it's about imitating Christ not following the teachings of the Church.     

As for De Profundis and other matters ... I don't see why I should accept this tear-stained text as more valuable than Wilde's earlier writings; you may find what you describe as his repudiation of aestheticism magnificent and moving, but I see it as a loss of style. 

And as for his ludicrous self-identification with Christ (with the latter conceived as a Romantic hero and artist), well, what is that if not simply another pose? I'm surprised you're taken in by this mix of self-pity, resentment, and bloated rhetoric. 

I'm also surprised that you don't seem to see the irony in quoting the part of Wilde's letter in which he takes a pop at those whose "thoughts are someone else's opinions [...] their passions a quotation" [3].

And not only do you quote from Wilde, but from Nietzsche and Jung too - even as you seem to object to my referencing authors; or perhaps your remark about being an 'anyone-ian' betrays a misunderstanding of how proper names function within a text.

In brief, the proper name contains within it a series of associations (and connotations) that I’m calling upon in order show how 'my' text unfolds within a much wider philosophical and literary history and an intertextual space. When I say 'as a Barthesian', for example, I’m not identifying with Barthes as an extratextual being, but evoking a certain style of thinking and writing.

Using proper names is also, of course, a way of dispersing and disguising the self; like Nietzsche, I want to be able to declare myself 'all the names in history' - onymic ambiguity rather than unified authorial presence is the aim. 

Anyway, hope these remarks answer your questions and address your concerns. 

SA  


Notes
 
[1] Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1990), p. 161. 

[2] Ibid
 
[3] Oscar Wilde, De Profundis. Written in 1897, the complete and corrected text wasn't published until 1962 when it was included in The Letters of Oscar Wilde, ed. Rupert Hart-Davis (Harcourt, Brace & World). The line quoted can be found on p. 479. Note that a scholarly edition, ed. by Ian Small, was published as De Profundis; Epistola: In Carcere et Vinculis, by Oxford University Press in 2005 (Vol. II of The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde)


20 Feb 2025

On Torpedo the Ark as a Form of Digital Hypomnema and Honey Making

Stephen Alexander: Hypomnema (2025)
 
 
I. 
 
Is blogging really so different from the ancient Greek practice of providing a written commentary on the self and the keeping of a singular (if fragmentary) record of events? 
 
I would rather like to think that it isn't; although it depends of course on the blog and the blogger. 
 
Here, I shall offer remarks only with reference to Torpedo the Ark (TTA), which may not be the best or most popular blog in the world, but which nevertheless provides - in my view - a contemporary example of what Plato and friends referred to as hypomnemata ...
 
 
II. 
 
Neither offered as intimate diary entries, nor a series of spiritual confessions designed to purify the soul, the posts on TTA are intended as an intertextual form of ethopoietic writing based upon an assemblage of literary quotes, artistic images, gay philosophical reflections, and other heterogeneous elements.
 
And that's the key: however personal they may seem, these posts do not merely provide a narrative of the self and the primary aim is to "capture the already said, to collect what one has managed to hear or read" [1] in order that one may detach oneself from the constant buzz of the present and the uncertainty of the future.
 
In other words, blogging allows one to find a little untimely peace and quiet, via contemplation of the past. 
 
However, before one leaps to the conclusion that blogging is thus essentially conservative and nostalgic in character, my writing of posts is also (and always) a radically disparate practice, which doesn't wish to unify ideas into a doctrine or system; nor attempt to know an author's body of work in depth and in detail.  
 
It doesn't really matter, for example, if I haven't read every last word written by Nietzsche and Lawrence (the two authors who have most shaped my own thinking); and it makes very little difference to the success or failure of a post whether I have fully grasped what they meant to say, or whether I am able to faithfully reconstruct their arguments. 
 
 
III. 
 
Ultimately, TTA is governed by the same two principles that Foucault says determine the ancient Greek notebook: (i) the local truth of the precept and (ii) its circumstantial use value. I thus feel free, like Seneca, to take what I want from where I want and relate it to my own life however I like:
 
"Writing as a personal exercise done by and for oneself is an art of disparate truth - or, more exactly, a purposeful way of combining the traditional authority of the already said with the singularity of the truth that is affirmed therein and the particularity of the circumstances that determine its use." [2]      
 
Some critics are annoyed by this and accuse me of all kinds of things; I had a charming email the other day, for example, informing me that TTA is 'an infuriating mix of narcissism, plagiarism, and wilful misreading'. 
 
Fortunately, I'm not too bothered by such accusations. For again, like the great Stoic philosopher mentioned above, I feel at perfect liberty to select (and steal) ideas from other authors and then shape them into what is needed: "'This is my own custom; from the many things which I have read, I claim some part for myself.'" [3]
 
After all, isn't that what bees do when they promiscuously gather nectar from a 1000 different flowers in order to make honey?      

 
Notes
 
[1] Michel Foucault, 'Self-Writing', in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, Vol. 1 of The Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, ed. by Paul Rabinow, trans. Robert Hurley and others (Penguin Books 2000), p. 211.
 
[2] Ibid., 212. 

[3] Seneca, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, Letter II, section V. Quoted by Foucault in the work cited, p. 213. 
 
 
This post is for a friend who asked: 'Do you regard blogging as a form of life-writing?'


5 Feb 2025

A Philosophical Reflection on Getting Older

Portrait of the Artist as a 
Darkly Enlightened Philosopher
(SA 2025) [1]
 
"Darling, am I looking old? / Tell me dear I must be told ..." [2]
 
I. 
 
You know you're getting older not just when another birthday looms on the horizon - each candle on the cake essentially another nail in the coffin - but when, following the presentation of a short paper at Kant's Cave [3], a young woman approaches not to discreetly slip you her phone number or ask for your email address, but to inform you of the fact that you remind her of her father.
 
Still, as a friend said with a smile, at least she didn't say grandmother ... 
 
 
II.
 
Many people like to believe that there are advantages to growing older; that experience makes one a little wiser, for example. But this is bullshit: and even if it were true, who wants a smidgen more wisdom when you can't see, can't run, can't breathe, and your hair has fallen out?
 
The fact is, most great works of philosophy were produced by thinkers in their mid-to-late 30s - Heidegger, for example, was 37 when Sein und Zeit was published - and whilst there are of course exceptions - such as Kant and his three Critiques - we can confidently say that there are very few works of significance written by thinkers over the age of 55 [4].  
 
As I'll be 62 next week - the same age as Wittgenstein when he died - that means I'm now way over the philosophical hill ... Still, at least I'm not buried beneath it.  
 
 
Notes
 
[1] The photo was taken on February 3rd 2025 at Kant's Cave (see note 2 below). I'm not sure if I look darkly enlightened, as intended, or simply like an old punk; one person described me as resembling a flamboyant East End gangster - i.e., a Kray brother dressed by Vivienne Westwood. 
 
[2] Lyrics from the X-Ray Spex song 'Age': click here to listen to it on a Peel Session (recorded 6 Nov 1978 and broadcast on the 13th of that month). 
 
[3] Kant's Cave is a monthly meeting organised by Philosophy for All and held in a first floor function room at the the famous Two Chairmen pub, in Wesminster. The paper addressed the question: What is the Dark Enlightenment?
 
[4] See the post by Eric Schwitzgebel analysing the question of what the average age is when philosophers complete their most influential work: The Splintered Mind (12 May 2010): click here. 


26 Dec 2024

Boxing Day with Baudrillard

Cold Turkey with Jean Baudrillard 
(SA/2024)
 
 
Boxing Day or not, if given the choice between a plate of cold turkey and a book of cool memories, I think I prefer the latter. 
 
In other words, better fat-free Baudrillardian fragments and scattered thoughts, each existing perfectly in its own singular and symbolic space, than Christmas day leftovers. 


Note: Click here for a follow up post addressing a criticism of this one ...


25 Nov 2024

You Don't Have to Be Yayoi Kusama to Make Pumpkin Art

1: Portrait of a Pumpkin
2: Sorry Cinderella - It Looks Like You're Gonna Be Walking Home  
Stephen Alexander (2024)

 
Last week, on a freezing cold day, I paid a visit to the Shapero Gallery on Bond Street, in London's Mayfair, to see the Modern Muse exhibition, featuring works by various twentieth and twenty-first century artists [1]
 
Prints by all the usual suspects were included - Picasso, Warhol, Hockney, and (groan) Banksy - but there were also works by artists with whom I'm rather less familiar, such as Yayoi Kusama, whose black and white pumpkin I particularly appreciated [2].
 
For whilst traditionally a muse is conceived as an inspirational female figure, either mortal or divine, that seems a bit narrow and I think and we should open up the concept to include animals, plants, and even inanimate objects. 
 
After all, we're not ancient Greeks. And there's really no need to personify and feminise those forces and desires that fire the human imagination. 
 
Surely, like Kusama, we can all find inspiration in a piece of winter squash and a rotting vegetable might serve as a muse just as easily as Venus rising from the waves, or the lovely face of Kate Moss. 
 
The genre distinction between portraiture and still life is, I think, essentially untenable. Leonardo da Vinci's Head of a Young Girl (1506-08) is really no different from the visual representation of a head of cabbage - perhaps that's what Claude Lalanne was trying to tell us all along [3].  
 
And so, with all this in mind, I thought I'd follow Kusama's lead and turn to the humble pumpkin as muse - the above pictures being the result. The first, is a simple portrait; whilst the second, a rather more violent and complex image, deals with themes of death, decay, and disappointment.          
 
 
Notes
 
[1] For more information on the Shapero Gallery, please click here. For details of The Modern Muse exhibition in particular, click here.  
 
[2] The Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama - now in her 96th year and still going strong - has had a lifelong fascination with pumpkins and has elevated everybody's favourite squash (and organic Halloween prop) to iconic status in her art. As one critic writes: 
      "Equally rooted in personal memories and universal themes, her pumpkins rival the recognisability of Warhol's Soup Cans. Whether capturing the essence of infinity with her intricate net patterns or playing with a kaleidoscope of colours, Kusama's Pumpkins offer a visual feast that resonates globally."
      See Essie King's article, '10 Facts About Yayoi Kusama's Pumpkins', on myartbroker.com (8 Dec 2023): click here
 
[3] In 1968, Lalanne produced an ambitious sculpture entitled L'Homme à la tête de chou, combining human and vegetable. Serge Gainsbourg famously purchased the piece and it inspired his 1976 concept album of the same title. Lalanne produced a second version of the work in 2005, which was donated (in lieu of inheritance tax) to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 2021.
      Readers who are interested in knowing more on Lalanne, Gainsbourg, and the man with the cabbage head might like to see my post of 16 June 2023: click here


21 Oct 2024

On My Convoluted Relationship With Walter Benjamin

 Walter Benjamin and Stephen Alexander illumined by
Paul Klee's blessed Angelus Novus (1920)
 
 
Readers familiar with this blog will know that I have a thing for writers whose names begin with the letter B: from Baudelaire to Baudrillard; and from Georges Bataille to Roland Barthes [1].  
 
To this list might also be added the name of Walter Benjamin, the German-Jewish cultural critic and theorist whose convoluted (unfinished) work about Paris as the capital of the nineteenth-century - known in English as The Arcades Project (1927-40) [2] - affirms the figure of the flâneur as having crucial philosophical significance. 
 
Often regarded as a seminal text for postmodernism, the Arcades Project also anticipates the world of blogging and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that, in some ways, Torpedo the Ark is my very own version of Benjamin's posthumously edited and published masterpiece [3].  
 
For example, like the Arcades Project, TTA relies heavily on compositional techniques including paraphrase, pastiche, and plagiarism [4] - affirming the idea of intertextuality and attempting to create a kind of literary-philosophical collage that defies any attempt to systematise ideas or enforce any kind of grand narrative.    
 
Like Benjamin, I dream of being able to simply stroll through the ruins and piece together found fragments of text from old works by dead authors, thereby creating something new and idiosyncratic, but not something that pretends to be an entirely original work born of individual uniqueness or any such Romantic fantasy. TTA is shaped by (functions and circulates within) a wider cultural history and a shared linguistic network of meaning.

And, like the Arcades Project, TTA has grown and mutated in a monstrous manner. Initially, Benjamin envisioned wrapping things up within a few weeks. However, as the work expanded in scope and complexity, he eventually came to view it as his most important achievement. 
 
Similarly, when I began TTA I thought it would provide a window on to a wider body of work. But it then became the work, absorbing huge amounts of time and energy and without any conceivable end point other than death (the final post may very well be a suicide note) [5].

 
Notes
 
[1] See the post dated 17 August 2022 in which I discuss these four French writers: click here.   
 
[2] Das Passagen-Werk consists of a massive assemblage of notes, fragments, and quotations that Benjamin assembled between 1927 and his death in 1940. The manuscript (along with additional material) for the Arcades Project was entrusted to Benjamin's pal Georges Bataille when the former fled Paris following the Nazi occupation. Bataille, who worked as a librarian at the Bibliothèque Nationale, hid the manuscript in a closed archive at the library where it was eventually discovered after the war. The full text was published in an English translation by Harvard University Press in 1999, having been first published in a German edition in 1982. 
 
[3] There are, of course, some important differences between Benjamin and myself and our respective projects. For one thing, my work has been influenced less by Jewish mysticism and Marxism and more by Jewish comedy and the punk philosophy of Malcolm McLaren.
 
[4] I know the idea of plagiarism is one that some readers balk at. However, it's one I'm happy to endorse; see the post entitled 'Blurred Lines' (21 January, 2016): click here. And see also the post 'On Poetry and Plagiarism' (13 December, 2018): click here
 
[5] Readers unfamiliar with the biographical details of Benjamin's story, may be interested to know Benjamin ended his own life, aged 48, on 26 September, 1940, in Portbou, Spain (a small coastal town just over the border with France). Fearing he was about to fall into the hands of the Gestapo, who had been given orders to arrest him, Benjamin chose to overdose on a handful of morphine tablets. 
 
 
This post is for Anja Steinbaum and Natias Neutert. 
 
 

11 Oct 2024

Chaos Continues to Reign

Stephen Alexander: Chaos Reigns II (2024)
 
 
Long-time readers of Torpedo the Ark might recall a post published on a sparkling ice-cold morning in December 2018, just days before Christmas, and which featured a horrific photo of a disembowelled fox ...
 
The post - which can be accessed by clicking here - was what my artist friend Heide Hatry would term a memento mori  (i.e., something that acts as a stark reminder of the inevitability of death).

And, like it or not, what I said then is just as true today; pain, grief, and despair remain ever-present in this world and fundamentally determine the tragic (if extremely rare and unusual) phenomenon that people call life
 
In other words, chaos continues to reign - and the obscenely mutilated bodies of red foxes (and other native creatures) continue to litter the roadside [1], reminding us that the wheel is the first principle of evil [2]
 
 
Notes
 
[1] An estimated 100,000 foxes are killed on UK roads each year (i.e., about 274 foxes per day). 
 
[2] See the verse 'What then is Evil?' by D. H. Lawrence, The Poems Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 626. 


29 Sept 2024

Of Gold and Iron Masks

Poster design featuring:
 
 1: Mask of Agamemnon  (c. 1550-1500 BC) [1]  
2 The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) [2] 
3: L'homme au masque d'or (2024) [3]
 
 
I. 
 
The death masks of Mycenae are a unique collection of gold funerary masks found on male bodies within a Bronze Age burial site located within the ancient Greek city. They were discovered by German businessman and amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann during an excavation in 1876.   
 
The masks consist of a flat (foil-like) layer of gold that has been hammered into shape and depict faces with distinct features (including stick out ears) chiseled into the metal. 
 
The masks are believed to be fairly faithful representations of the deceased, although there's obviously a degree of artistic license (and idealisation); those who could afford to have such masks made would obviously want to look their best in the circumstances.
 
The most famous of these masks is known as the Mask of Agamemnon, after Schliemann claimed to have discovered the actual burial site of the legendary king of the Acheans from Homer's Iliad. Let's just say that from the very start there were doubts raised as to its authenticity ... [4]    
 
 
II. 
 
Whilst the Mask of Agamemnon certainly played a part in my thinking when I created the image shown as figure 3 above, I was actually more inspired by the story of an unidentified prisoner of the French state during the reign of  Louis Quatorze; a prisoner referred to (in English) as The Man in the Iron Mask ...

Arrested and incarcerated in 1669, the Man in the Iron Mask spent 34 years locked up until his death in the Bastille in 1703. Known by several pseudonyms, his true identity remains a mystery, even though it has been extensively researched and argued over by historians ever since. According to one theory, he may have been the son of Oliver Cromwell. Voltaire believed him to be Louis's illegitimate brother [5].
 
Whoever he was, his ordeal has been the subject of many fictional works, including novels, poems, plays, and films. 
 
Perhaps the best-known of these works is by Alexandre Dumas, although readers whose preference is for American cinema rather than French literature might better recall the 1939 movie directed by James Whale (or indeed the 1998 movie directed by Randall Wallace and starring Leonardo DiCaprio). Both films are what would be termed very loose adaptations of the third part of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne (1847-50) [6].   
 
 
III.
 
Hopefully, in my Man in a Golden Mask collage I have managed to capture something both of the Mycenaean death mask in all its aureate splendour and the close-fitting iron mask as imagined by Dumas in all its horror. 
 
By leaving the eyes open and the mouth exposed, I attempted to show how one who suffers great torment at the hands of others dreams of vengeance and this can often be seen shining in their eyes and smiling on their lips ...           
 
 
Notes
 
[1] The Mask of Agamemnon is currently held by the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, Greece: click here.   
 
[2] A still from the 1939 film The Man in the Iron Mask (dir. James Whale). 
 
[3] Papier collé by Stephen Alexander (2024). 
 
[4] Towards the end of his life, Schliemann accepted doubts as to the mask's true owner. Modern archaeological research suggests that the mask is genuine, but pre-dates the period of the Trojan War by 300–400 years. Other researchers say it may even belong to a much earlier period, c. 2500 BC. 
 
[5] It is thanks to Voltaire that the legend developed that the anonymous prisoner was made to permanently wear an iron mask; as a matter of fact, his face was hidden behind a mask of black velvet and official documents reveal that he was made to wear it only when travelling between prisons after 1687, or when attending prayers within the Bastille in the final years of his incarceration.
 
[6] Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix ans plus tard is an enormous 2,800 page novel by Alexandre Dumas which was first published in serial form between 1847 and 1850. In most English translations, the 268 chapters are usually divided into three volumes: The Vicomte de Bragelonne (chapters 1-93), Louise de la Vallière (chapters 94-180), and The Man in the Iron Mask (chapters 181-269). 
      Long fascinated by the tale of l'homme au masque de fer, Dumas portrays the prisoner as Louis XIV's identical twin. 
 

24 Sept 2024

Reflections on Stephen Alexander's 'Lascivious' (1985) - A Guest Post by Sally Guaragna


 
Fig. 1: Stephen Alexander: Lascivious
 Oil on canvas (c. 1985) 
 
 
Stephen Alexander's aureate canvas entitled Lascivious depicting a rather shy and youthful-looking faun sharing a coital embrace with a flame-haired and sexually more experienced nymph, is, sadly, lost to the world: destroyed by the artist's sister in an act of malice that displayed sororal spite, philistine contempt for culture, and a previously unsuspected streak of puritanism [1]
 
The painting, which, as the title indicates, is essentially a reimagining of one of Agostino Carracci's erotic prints (c. 1590-95) [2], also betrays the influence of Van Gogh with its dynamic starry night sky and use of warm, radiant golden-yellow [3] (Alexander was at the time an avid reader of the Dutch artist's letters and kept a postcard featuring Vincent's self-portrait with a bandaged ear by his bedside). 
 
We also discover something of D. H. Lawrence's painting style in Alexander's canvas; see for example Lawrence's Fauns and Nymphs (1927) which features a golden-brown satyr embracing a large-breasted sun-nymph; and see also Lawrence's 1928 painting entitled Close-Up (Kiss), which may have influenced Alexander's compositional decision to simply produce a headshot of his mythological lovers (as well as the picture's golden-yellow colouring). 
 
Like Lawrence, Alexander seems primarily concerned with the invisible forces of desire that work upon the flesh and distort and deform bodies, caring little for anatomical fidelity. Deleuze terms such an art of sensation - an art that is neither representational nor symbolist.  
 
Lascivious is not, therefore, the work of an innocent Sunday painter; it's a philosophical gesture born of Alexander's libidinally material - essentially pagan - worldview. Very deliberately and with joy - though perhaps not with great subtlety or success - he promotes a Lawrentian concept of phallic tenderness in a manner that is not so much all'antica (despite the mythological theme) as très moderne.

 
Figs. 2-4
For details see note [4] below. 
 
 
Notes
 
[1] The digial image shown here is taken from a photo of the painting in the artist's possession.
 
[2] Agostino Carracci (1557-1602) was an Italian artist recognised internationally as one of the finest engravers of his time. 
      Between 1590-1595, he produced a financially rewarding series of fifteen erotic works known as the Lascivie, inspired by a notorious earlier set of prints known as I modi (c. 1524-27) engraved by Marcantonio, after drawings by Giulio Romano and illustrating various sexual acts and positions.
      Whilst enhancing his reputation amongst wealthy collectors of such works, Carracci's prints elicited censure from the Church which inveighed against works of an openly sexual nature even when they were given a mytho-classical veneer in an attempt to make them appear less salacious and the men who took pleasure in contemplating the images seem cultured rather than just pervy.
 
[3] Alexander discusses his love for the colour yellow (with reference to the works of Van Gogh) in a post on Torpedo the Ark entitled 'How Beautiful Yellow Is' (1 May 2024): click here.
 
[4] Fig. 2: Agostino Carracci, A Satyr and Nymph Embracing, print from an engraving (150 x 102 mm), British Museum, London. One of fifteen in the series Lascivie (c. 1590-95).
      Fig. 3: D. H. Lawrence, detail from Fauns and Nymphs (1927), oil on canvas (95 x 80 cm). 
      Fig. 4: D. H. Lawrence, Close-Up (Kiss) (1928), oil on canvas (45 x 37.5 cm). 

 
Art critic Sally Guaragna has written two other posts for Torpedo the Ark. Click here to read  Reflections on Stephen Alexander's 'When the Moon Hits Your Eye' (5 May 2023) and/or here to read Reflections on Stephen Alexander's 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' (6 August 2024). 


12 Aug 2024

Deadnaming (With Reference to the Case of Mara in the Book of Ruth)

Don't Deadname (after William Blake
Stephen Alexander (2024) [1]
 
 
I. 
 
Perhaps because I have myself used and been known by several aliases, I'm somewhat sympathetic to those (often transgender or non-binary) individuals who object to what is termed deadnaming ...
 
That is to say, the sometimes unintentional, sometimes deliberate act of referring to a person by a name they no longer identify with or wish to be called, even if that name is the one that appears on their birth certificate and other official documentation and is deemed to be not only their legal name, but their real name referring to their true self (an assumed alias is invariably seen as suspicious; an attempt to conceal or deceive). 
 
Although the verb deadnaming is of recent origin - the OED dates it to 2013 - the insistence by others on calling an individual by an old name is not without historical - and indeed biblical - precedent ...
 
 
II. 
 
Readers with knowledge of the Old Testament will be familiar with the Book of Ruth and the story of how Naomi, having been forced by circumstances to leave Bethlehem and live in the land of Moab, has the tragic misfortune of losing her husband and both sons. 
 
Grief-stricken and near destitute, she decides to return to her homeland and is accompanied by her daughter-in-law, Ruth, at the latter's insistence; the Book of Ruth essentially describing the struggles of the two women to survive in a patriarchal society and in the face of much hardship. 

Of most interest to me, however, is the fact that when Naomi returns and is greeted by those who remember her, she tells them: "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me".
 
Obviously, she refers at one level to the fact that God has left her bereft and in poverty. But her remark also indictes that the bitterness she is experiencing is so profound that it is transitional if not indeed transformational: she no longer feels herself to be the same woman upon her return to Bethlehem as the woman who left ten years earlier. 
 
If this is for the most part a psychological change, we can probably assume that she has also been physically aged by time and sorrow. Thus, it's perfectly understandable, I think, that she would wish to be known by a new name; a name more indicative of the woman she now recognises herself to be; i.e., one born of and shaped by bitterness. 
 
For whereas her old name, Naomi, means sweet-natured and pleasant of disposition, her new self-chosen name of Mara means bitter (although it might be noted that this name in Hebrew also implies strength; for just as hatred can itself become creative, so too can bitterness harden and make stronger).
 
The point is this: we all, like Mara, have the right to become-other and not to be deadnamed by those who value fixity over fluidity and would forever tie us to the past.   
 
 
Notes

[1] This image is based on Blake's print 'Naomi entreating Ruth and Orpah to return to the land of Moab' (1795), full details of which can be found on the V&A website: click here.  


6 Aug 2024

Reflections on Stephen Alexander's 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' - A Guest Post by Sally Guaragna

Stephen Alexander:  
I Want to Hold Your Hand (2024)

 
Stephen Alexander's disturbing self-portrait accompanied by Myra Hindley is a stark reminder of the fact that evil lurks around every corner and that the radiant innocence of childhood offers no protection; as the parents of the young girls murdered in Stockport last month discovered to their horror [1].
 
It also reminds us of the fact that the Swinging Sixties began not only "Between the end of the 'Chatterley' ban / And the release of the Beatles' first LP" [2], but with the Moors murders - just as it ended in an equally brutal and depraved manner with the Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by the Manson Family in the summer of 1969. 
 
The fact that the photo of the artist as a child is for the most part entirely genuine - taken in 1966 at Southend-on-Sea - only adds to its power. The only change made (non-digitally) is the replacement of the head of Alexander's sister with that of a woman dubbed by the press as the most hated woman in Britain
 
Alexander explains: 
 
'I cut out the famous police photograph of Hindley taken shortly after her arrest in 1965 and pasted it by hand directly on to the photo of my sister. I wanted it to look like a mask being worn. A mask more terrible even than the one worn by Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), because it depicted the face of a rather glamorous young woman who, with her peroxide blonde bouffant, reminded me of a much-loved aunty in the 1960s whose hand I would happily hold.'    
 
Alexander's is a great image; one that, in my view, deserves to be hung alongside Marcus Harvey's controversial 1995 painting made using casts of an infant's tiny hand to create a giant mosaic of Hindley:   
 
 
Marcus Harvey: Myra (1995) [3]
 
 
Notes
 
[1] On 29 July 2024, a mass stabbing occurred at a dance studio in Southport, Merseyside. Three children were killed, and ten other people - eight of whom were children - were injured, some of them critically. A 17-year-old male was arrested at the scene and charged with murder, attempted murder, and possession of a bladed weapon.
 
[2] Philip Larkin, 'Annus Mirabilis', first published in The London Magazine, Vol. 9, No.10, (January 1970): click here. 
 
[3] Marcus Harvey's 1995 painting Myra caused a lot of fuss when it was displayed at the Sensation exhibition of Young British Artists at the Royal Academy of Art in London from 8 September to 28 December 1997: four members of the RA resigned in protest at its inclusion; windows at Burlington House, where the Academy is based, were smashed; the painting was vandalised twice (by fellow artists); and a children's charity accused the RA of the 'sick exploitation of dead children'. Even Hindley wrote from prison to ask for her portrait to be removed from the exhibition.
 
 
To read another post by Sally Guaragna - reflections on my 'When the Moon Hits Your Eye' photo (5 May 2023) - please click here. 


18 Jul 2024

Beneath the Wheel

 
Stephen Alexander: Beneath the Wheel (2024) 

 
I.
 
If any image brutally encapsulates the idea of tragic irony, then it is surely the one above.

It shows a young hedgehog seeking refuge beneath a parked car in a residential area of east London in which almost every last garden and green open space has been concreted over and built upon, leaving this lovable little creature with nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. 
 
He might not know what fate has in store for him, but, sadly, we as viewers have a pretty good idea ... 
 
 
II. 
 
When I was a child in the 1970s, there were over 30 million hedgehogs snuffling around UK gardens; now it is believed there are probably no more than a million. Mostly this is due to the loss and fragmentation of habitat and the widespread use of pesticides. But many hedgehogs were (and still are) killed on the roads each year.   
 
In that same period, the UK human population has grown by ten million and the number of cars has increased from 27 million to 33 million. Personally, I would rather there were fewer people, fewer cars, and many, many more hedgehogs.
 
To paraphrase D. H. Lawrence: I think in this world there is room for me and a hedgehog. And I think how easily we might spare a million or two humans and never miss them. Yet what a gap in existence, the furry face of that cute little mammal with a pig-like snout. [1]
 
 
Notes
 
[1]  I'm paraphrasing the final verse of Lawrence's poem 'Mountain Lion'. See The Poems, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 352.  


29 Jun 2024

Meine Rosen

Meine Rosen (SA / 2024)
 
 
I. 
 
As is well known, Zarathustra often speaks cryptically.
 
Take the following sentence, for example, spoken when, walking through the forest with his disciples one evening, he came to a clearing where lovely maidens were dancing. Attempting to reassure the young women that he meant them no harm, he first praises their light-footedness before adding: 
 
'I am a forest and a night of dark trees: but she who is not afraid of my darkness will discover a bed of roses ...' [1]

What does that mean? 
 
It sounds like a rather elaborate chat-up line to me; i.e., a remark made both to initiate conversation and signal sexual interest. Of course, Zarathustra being Zarathustra, he can't help also displaying his intelligence and poetic sensibility (even as he openly admires the bare feet and fine ankles of the girls to whom he speaks).
 
 
II.

As Zarathustra is essentially Nietzsche's fictional mouthpiece, it's not surprising that the latter also liked to speak with pride about his roses ... 
 
Thus, in the poetic prelude to The Gay Science entitled 'Joke, Cunning, and Revenge' [2], Nietzsche includes a verse entitled Meine Rosen, which also combines the idea of rosy happiness or the promise of joy, with something a bit darker, a bit pervier, a bit more "malice-laden" as one translator has it [3].   
 
Below is my version of the poem; not exactly a translation, more a (somewhat prosified) reimagining, which, nevertheless, I think manages to make Nietzsche's point that those who want to find love and happiness - particularly as he understands these things - have to struggle and be prepared to take risks (i.e., engage in something that some might think of as edge play).


My Roses
 
Of course my happiness wishes to infect you - 
All joy is contagious! 
But if you'd like to smell my roses
 
You'll have to scramble first over rocky ledges
and cut through tangled thorny hedges,
pricking your tiny finger tips!

For my joy - it loves cruel teasing!
For my joy - it loves displeasing!    
Do you still want to pick my roses?
 
 
Notes 
 
[1] Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, II. 32.

[2] Nietzsche borrows this title from a libretto by Goethe: 'Scherz, List, und Rache'. Although the work was written in the 1780s (and published by the author in 1790), it was not set to music until 1881, when Nietzsche's young friend Peter Gast (Heinrich Köselitz) decided to undertake the task.
 
[3] I'm referring to Adrian Del Caro, whose translation of Nietzsche's poems in 'Joke, Cunning, and Revenge' can be found in the 2001 Cambridge edition of The Gay Science, ed. Bernard Williams, trans. Josefine Nauckhoff. 
      Del Caro attempts to stay as closely as he can to the rhyme scheme (and rhythm) of the German; readers can decide if succeeds (or not) in the case of Meine Rosen by turning to p. 13 of the above text. For an alternative translation, see Kaufmann's effort - conveniently placed alongside the German original - in The Gay Science (Vintage books, 1974), pp. 44-45. 
 

14 Apr 2024

Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena

Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena  
(SA/2024)
 
 
In 2022 NASA assembled an independent study team [1] to analyse what are known as unidentified anomalous phenomena [2]
 
Headed by David Spergal, the UAPIST consists of sixteen experts who, presumably, like Fox Mulder, are motivated by the belief that the truth is out there (although is unlikely, in their view, to be extraterrestrial or paranormal in origin) [3].
 
According to Spergal, many - if not most - UAP events can be attributed to everyday causes, including weather balloons and atmospheric phenomena. However, he concedes that there remain events which cannot easily be explained and these warrant, in his view, further investigation, as anomalies sometimes reveal new and interesting facts about the universe. 
 
Unfortunately, I believe the UAPIST was dissolved upon the completion and submission of its final report in September 2023 - which, if true, is a real shame, as I was hoping someone from the team might be able to tell me what the three bright and colourful lights dancing about like sprites outside my bathroom window the other night were ... (see photo above).  
 
 
Notes
 
[1] Go to the NASA website for more information on the UAP Independent Study Team: click here.
 
[2] Apparently, the term UAP first appeared in the late 1960s, although I had never heard it used until very recently. Those who privilege the term see it as a more encompassing description than the older term UFO and also free of the cultural associations attached to the latter which can be problematic for those wishing to conduct rigorous, evidence-based research.
 
[3] The UAPIST began work in October 2022 and held its first public meeting in May 2023. Their final report was released in September 2023 and did not find any evidence to suggest that extraterrestrial life was responsible for the mysterious and unusual things that all manner of people had observed.