Nostalgie für das Ding

Dorothee Richter and Kim Novak as Gillian Holroyd in

Bell, Book and Candle (dir. Richard Quine, 1958)

 

 

According to Dorothee Richter, who - among other things - is a professor in contemporary curating at the University of Reading, nostalgia for the thing is always reactionary and, as such, makes her feel uncomfortable and unhappy [1]. 

Which is a shame. 

 

However, at the risk of adding to her discomfort and distress, I'm afraid that my fascination with das Ding - whether in the prose poems of Francis Ponge [2], the philosophical reflections of Martin Heidegger [3], or the psychoanalytic seminars of Jacques Lacan [4] - grows stronger by the year. 

 

Richter can't quite understand why there are thinkers - like Vilém Flusser [5] and Byung-Chul Han [6] - for whom the thing is still an alluring object, albeit one that is rapidly vanishing in this virtual age of Undinge: 

 

"Have we not been here before, and have we not, with good reason, rejected the auratic view of things? [...] Why is there this cyclically recurring nostalgia for the thing in its pure aspect?" [7], she asks.

 

And, yes, I suppose we have been here before. And perhaps there are good reasons to be suspicious of those who become too taken with the idea that things, including artworks and human beings, have a magical quality or essence. 

 

But, having said that, who wants to live in an entirely disenchanted world where everything has been dissolved and digitalised into quantifiable data to be processed by artificial intelligence? 

 

I don't. And, if I'm honest, it shocks me that anyone would.

 

When push comes to shove, I stand with the young witch I met recently at Treadwell's [8], who told me that when non-things beckon her to enter a virtual hell, she relies on the saving power of bell, book, and candle to summon her back to reality.           

 

Notes

 

[1] Dorothee Richter, '(Non-)Things or Why Nostalgia for the Thing is Always Reactionary', OnCurating,  Issue 45: click here. 

      This is a slightly modified version of an essay, trans. Judith Rosenthal, that was originally published under the title '(Un)Dinge, oder warum die Sehnsucht nach dem Ding immer reaktionär ist', in Interdisziplinäres Ausstellen, ed. Sabine Fauland, (Österreichischer Museumsbund, Vienna, 2016).

 

[2] Francis Ponge (1899 - 1988); French essayist and poet. Influenced by both surrealism and phenomenology, Ponge developed a unique style of writing in which he closely examined everyday objects. See Le Parti pris des choses (1942), a collection of 32 prose poems, translated into English by Beth Archer Brombert as Taking the Side of Things (1972) and as The Nature of Things by Lee Fahnestock (1995). 

 

[3] Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976); German philosopher. Considered to be among the most important and influential thinkers of the 20th-century.  In a series of post-War lectures delivered in Bremen, Heidegger discussed the question concerning modern technology and spoke about das Ding as a gathering place of the Fourfold. See Insight Into That Which Is, trans. Andrew J. Mitchell, (Indiana University Press, 2012).    

[4] Jacques Lacan (1901 - 1981); French psychoanalyst. Discussion of the thing constitutes one of the central themes of his work in 1959-60. He uses the French term la chose interchangeably with the German term das Ding. For Lacan, the latter refers to the thing in its dumb reality, entirely outside of language and the unconscious (thus ultimately impossible for man to ever fully imagine or describe). It remains, however, an object of desire to which we continually return; the unforgettable Other.   

 

[5] Vilém Flusser (1920 - 1991); Czech-born writer and theorist who lived for a long time in Brazil. Initially under the spell of Heidegger, Flusser developed his own take on the question of things and non-things; see Dinge und Undinge: Phänomenologische Skizzen (Hanser, 1993) and The Shape of Things: A Philosophy of Design, (Reaktion Books, 1999); a series of insightful essays (translated into English by Anthony Mathews) on things including wheels, carpets, pots, umbrellas, and tents. 

[6] Byung-Chul Han; South Korean-born philosopher and cultural theorist living in Germany. I have discussed (or referred to) many of his ideas and books on Torpedo the Ark. In a note to his recent work, Non-things, trans Daniel Steur, (Polity Press, 2022), Han writes: 

"There has been an increasing interest in things in cultural studies over the past few decades. This theoretical interest in things, however, does not mean that things are becoming more important in everyday life. On the contrary, the fact that they have become the explicit subject of theoretical reflection is a sign that they are disappearing. [...] Similarly, 'material culture' and the 'material turn' can be understood as reactions to the dematerialization and dereification of reality brought about by digitalization." [99-100]

I review and discuss this text in a two-part post published in June 2022: click here to go to part one.       

 

 [7] Dorothee Richter, op. cit. 

      By the thing in its pure aspect, I think Richter is referring to the thing as a thing-in-itself [Ding-an-sich] with its own unique presence in time and space. This latter is what Walter Benjamin termed its aura - dismissed by Richter as merely a bourgeois attempt to spiritualise the object and give it aesthetic value or abstract beauty outside and above any political history or meaning. For Richter, all such thinking is mythologizing and there are no objects outside of language; a tree, for example, is a concept, not a thing (in itself) - indeed, the entire universe is mind-dependent. As an object-oriented philosopher, I don't subscribe to this correlationism.  

[8] Treadwell's is a bookshop located at 33, Store Street, Bloomsbury, London, WC1. It specialises in esoteric titles and stocks various herbs and ceremonial oils used in occult practices and/or modern pagan witchcraft. It was opened in 2003 (originally in Covent Garden) by proprietor Christina Harrington. I have given over thirty papers at the store: click here for details. For further information visit: treadwells-london.com

 

 

On the Manufacture of Good Little Boys (The D. H. Lawrence Birthday Post 2023)

Arthur Fleck as played by Joaquin Phoenix in Joker (2019) 

Click here for the relevant scene on YouTube.

 

In one of his late articles, D. H. Lawrence - who was born on this day in 1885 - complained of the manner in which modern men - himself included - have been enslaved by civilisation to the detriment of their own instinctive feelings and individuality:

 

"Little boys are trundled off to school at the age of five, and immediately the game begins, the game of enslaving the small chap." [a]

 

Mostly, Lawrence blames this on women; mothers and schoolma'ams and old maids, who know nothing about manhood and suspect that the latter is something "uncalled-for and unpleasant" [156]. 

 

On the very first day in class, young Johnny is told he must sit still "'like all the other good little boys'" [157], even though this is the last thing on earth that he wants to do: "At the bottom of his heart, he doesn't in the least want to be a good little boy ..." [157].       

 

The entire education system, says Lawrence is established to manufacture obedient little boys:

 

"School is a very elaborate railway-system where good little boys are taught to run upon good lines till they are shunted off into life, at the age of fourteen, sixteen or whatever it is. And by that age the running-on-lines habit is absolutely fixed. [...] And it is so easy, running on rails, he never realises that he is a slave to the rails he runs on. Good boy!" [157]  

 

"But to be a good little boy like all the other good little boys is to be at last a slave, or at least an automaton, running on wheels. It means that dear little Johnny is going to have all his own individual manhood nipped out of him, carefully plucked out, every time it shows a little peep." [157]

 

Some describe this as the civilising of the wild young boy. But Lawrence insists it's a "subtle, loving form of mutilation" [157] and bullying. And goodness ultimately just means conforming to a universal morality and being like everybody else without any feelings or ideas to call your own.

 

So what, then, is Lawrence suggesting here? 

 

He says that "nobody wants Johnny to be a bad little boy" [158]. But, having said that, I can't help suspecting that he would sympathise with someone like Arthur Fleck [b] who, after years and years, of being expected to sit and take endless bullshit from the po-faced finger-wagging moralists who have control over his life, finally snaps and starts to werewolf and go wild ... 

 

    

Notes

[a] D. H. Lawrence, 'Enslaved by Civilisation', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 156. Future page references to this work will be given directly in the text.

      What is remarkable about this short text is that it anticipates Freud's famous work of 1930 - Das Unbehagen in der Kultur - translated into English as Civilization and Its Discontents. 

      In this pessimistic work, Freud theorised the fundamental tension between civilisation and the individual; the latter desiring instinctive freedom, whilst the former requires conformity to the law and the repression of natural (often violent) instincts. 

      Unlike Lawrence, Freud thinks the non-satisfaction of man's most powerful instincts is not only necessary, but positively a good thing; that man is much better off tamed in the name of Love than allowed to give free expression to those primitive feelings and dangerous passions derived from and representative of the (so-called) death drive. The suffering and distress caused by this loss of instinctive freedom is ultimately a price worth paying as it secures the advance of civilisation. 

 

[b] Arthur Fleck is the aspiring stand-up comic and professional clown protagonist played by Joaquin Phoenix in the 2019 film Joker (dir. Todd Phillips). Fleck’s tale demonstrates what happens when negative thoughts and feelings are not tolerated. The individual, denied the opportunity to express suffering in a legitimate form, either self-harms or goes on a killing spree. In other words, psychic disturbances and psychotic behaviour can often be traced back to an excess of positivity.  

 

On Punk, Pink, and Dollification

(L) SA wearing a pink gingham check shirt from Child of the Jago [1]

(R) Ken Doll wearing a pastel pink and mint green striped 

two-piece beach set by Mattel [2]

 

 

For me, pink is one of the essential colours of punk: which is undoubtedly why Jamie Reid used it (along with bright yellow and black) for the provocatively lurid sleeve of Never Mind the Bollocks and why, many years earlier, the proto-punk fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli had created a shocking shade of pink to be synonymous with her brand. 

 

Thus, when I wore a pink (and white) ensemble for an event in Bloomsbury recently, I was confidently expecting it to be received within the context of the above history of art and fashion.

 

Unfortunately, there were some young people present that evening whose cultural references are far more contemporary and, in their eyes, I looked like a refugee from Barbie World - which is, arguably, a little unkind, if not entirely unfair: after all, who wants to be thought of as a human doll? 

 

Having said that, if it's okay for Ryan Gosling to be dolled up and dollified, for his role as Ken in the movie Barbie (dir. Greta Gerwig, 2023), then why should I worry?

 

And even Sid Vicious was ultimately reduced to the status of an action figure following his death (if not, indeed, years prior to his tragic and untimely demise) - although, sadly, not wearing the pair of pink peg-leg pants that he loved so much ... [4] 

     

 

 Jamie Reid: Sid Vicious Action Man 

£12.50 [3]

 

Notes

 

[1] Photo by Paul Gorman taken on 7 Sept 2023 outside Treadwell's Bookshop (London)

 

[2] Anyone interested in buying the doll (£44.99) can visit the Mattel website by clicking here. 

 

[3] This image by Jamie Reid was used to promote the Sex Pistols single 'Something Else', released from the album The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Virgin Records, 1979). The original poster is in the Jamie Reid archive at the V&A and can be viewed online by clicking here. Obviously, Reid is critiquing the co-option and commodification of punk by the Spectacle (as well as, perhaps, the exploitation of dead performers, who will never be allowed to rest in peace so long as they can still shift product). 

 

[4] Sid can be seen wearing these pink pegs in a short film on Youtube provided by ITV Channel Television, which shows the Sex Pistols at Jersey Airport in the summer of 1977 about to board a plane, having been officially ordered to leave the island: click here. Paul Gorman informs me that Sid had actually borrowed the trousers from guitarist Steve Jones, who had bought them years earlier from Let It Rock.  

 

 

For a post published back in Feb 2019 on the politics of pink, click here.

 

 

In Defence of Isis Veiled: What a Practice of Occultism Might Mean in an Age of Transparency

Cover art for the Treadwell's Paper 

Occultism in the Age of Transparency (2023)

by Stephen Alexander (shadowy version)

 

 

This post is a slightly revised extract from a paper presented at Treadwell's Bookshop, on 7 September, 2023. The event was graciously hosted, as ever, by Christina Harrington, and marked my return to the store as a speaker after an absence of eleven years [1]. 

 

 

**************************************************

 

 

The Veil of Isis is a metaphorical and artistic motif in which nature is personified as a goddess, covered by a veil or mantle representing the inaccessibility of her secrets [2]. 

 

Illustrations of Isis with her veil being lifted were extremely popular from the late 17th to the early-mid 19th century and were usually intended to show the triumph of Reason. However, even occultists were happy to play this game of indecent exposure; Madame Blavatsky, for example, used the metaphor of Isis unveiled when expounding the spiritual teachings of Theosophy [3]. 

 

According to Blavatsky, whilst scientists and philosophers revealed only material facts and superficial forms, she would penetrate further to the most hidden truths. That, to me at least, is a shameful ambition.

 

And I don't much like it either when practitioners of modern ceremonial magic also attempt to unveil Isis, or command demons hidden in darkness to make themselves apparent and obedient to the will of the one who has summoned them forth. 

 

For me, occultism - particularly in this, the age of transparency - should be a defence of concealment and anonymity, not making visible and naming those beings who stand dark on the threshold of the Unknown. 

 

I don’t want to violently drag everything out into the open - least of all some poor demon - so it can be subject to our x-ray vision. For even gods and demons die when they shed all negativity (all shadow, all darkness). That’s why Goethe’s Faust encouraged us to hold tight to the veil of Isis, even if we can never embrace the goddess, or catch anything other than a glimpse of her [4]. 

 

Occultism is ultimately not about revelation, but mystical initiation. And this involves closing your eyes and shutting your mouth; for it's an attempt to maintain the silence and stillness. Thus, when casting a spell, for example, whisper it in a voice that is lighter than breath. For magic, like poetry, is an event of stillness (i.e., a phenomenon of negativity) that enables us to listen to the silence (to be attentive to the darkness). 

 

In other words, magic is about tuning in to intensities; about forming a sensitive relationship with the world "that is not characterized by representation (that is, by ideas or meaning) but by immediate touching and presence" [5]. Only in silent stillness "do we enter into a relation with the nameless, which exceeds us" [6].

 

Silence, stillness, secrecy, and shadows are the fourfold of terms at the heart of occultism. 

 

And I would suggest to any would-be wiccans or neo-pagans here this evening that, instead of trying to move with the times and making secret rituals open to everyone, you stay concealed, hidden, and withdrawn. 

 

And, above all, stay still: for just as we can only ever catch a glimpse of the gods, they can only cast their gaze upon those who "linger in contemplative calmness" [7]. 

 

In sum: occult practices and magical rituals are symbolic techniques of becoming-imperceptible [8] and I’m hoping, that via a form of occultism, we might learn how to stage our own disappearance and darken the world, giving it back its shadows, its secrecy, and its silence. 

 

For whilst people talk a lot about plastic in the seas and worry about their so-called carbon footprint, I would suggest that light pollution and noise pollution are far more threatening to our ontological wellbeing. 

 

 

Photo by Paul Gorman 

(as posted on Instagram)

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Readers can find a full list of previous Treadwell's papers by clicking here.

 

[2] The motif was based on a statue of Isis located in the ancient Egyptian city of Sais, which was said to have an inscription reading: I am all that has been and is and shall be; and no mortal has ever lifted my mantle - which admittedly sounds like a challenge. For an interesting philosophical study of this topic, see Pierre Hadot, The Veil of Isis (Harvard University Press, 2008). 

      Taking the allegorical figure of the veiled goddess Isis as a guide, and drawing on the work of both ancient and modern thinkers (the latter including Goethe, Rilke, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger), Hadot traces successive interpretations of a cryptic phrase which has long intrigued the Western imagination and is attributed to Heraclitus: Phusis kruptesthai philei (Nature loves to hide). 

      Hadot concludes that there are essentially two (contradictory) approaches to nature: the Promethean, or experimental-questing, approach, which embraces technology as a means of tearing the veil from Nature and revealing her secrets; and the Orphic, or contemplative-poetic, approach, according to which such a denuding of Nature is a grave trespass. 

 

[3] Blavatsky’s most famous work - Isis Unveiled:A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology - was published in 1877. For some, a seminal text; for others, a work largely plagiarised from the writings of other occult authors. 

 

[4] Whilst most people understand a glimpse simply to mean a brief or partial view - to catch a quick look, perhaps in passing, of something or someone - it has a more poetic and philosophical resonance for those with ears to hear. D. H. Lawrence, for example, was fascinated by the word and often used it in his late poetry to describe how aspects of divinity are seen in the faces and forms of people when they are momentarily unaware of themselves. It's this glimmer of godhood which gives human beings their more-than-human beauty; which makes the flesh gleam with radiance or the bright flame of being. See the related group of verses on pp. 579-582 of The Poems, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013). 

      Heidegger also privileged the word Blick, which I would translate as glimpse. For Heidegger, a glimpse is a kind of lightning flash which provides an insight into that which is, whilst, at the same time, guarding the hidden darkness of what remains forever withdrawn. See 'The Turn', from the 1949 Bremen Lecture series Insight Into That Which Is, trans. Andrew J. Mitchell, (Indiana University Press, 2012), pp. 64-73.

 

[5] Byung-Chul Han, 'Stillness', in Non-things, trans. Daniel Steuer, (Polity Press, 2022), p. 77. 

 

[6] Byung-Chul Han, 'The Magic of Things', Non-things, pp. 56-57. 

 

[7] Byung-Chul Han, 'Stillness', Non-things, p. 83.

 

[8] See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi, (The Athlone Press, 1996). According to the above, there is one becoming towards which all other becomings rush, marking the immanent end of becoming and providing the process with its cosmic formula; the becoming-imperceptible (279). 

 

 

Readers who are interested might also like to see two earlier posts that acted as previews to the talk at Treadwell's: 

 

'In Memory of Anne Dufourmantelle: Risk Taker Extraordinaire and Defender of Secrets' (14 May 2023): click here 

 

'On Georg Simmel's Sociology of Secrecy and Secret Societies' (10 August 2023): click here. 

 

 

ASMR

Virginia Woolf as an ASMRtist

Illustration by Sophie Kuang and Antonio Perricone for an article 

written by Cara Nicholson in The Isis Magazine (2019): click here.

 

 

 

What is ASMR?

 

In brief: an autonomous sensory meridian response is a queer tingling sensation that often begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. 

 

Some commentators have described it as a pleasant form of paresthesia, though I suppose that depends on what (or who) triggers the feeling and upon the individual experiencing it; euphoria to one person is simply irritating to another. 

 

ASMR is most commonly triggered by auditory and/or visual stimuli, rather than the direct touch of another. And so might best be conceived, like masturbation, as a mental rather than a physical phenomenon. 

 

Orgasm, however, isn't always the desired outcome; some are seeking relaxation rather than sexual gratification and Jennifer Allen who, in 2010, coined the phrase autonomous sensory meridian response, purposely selected these clinical-sounding terms to cover a wide field of experience [1].  

 

Having said that, pornographic ASMR that is deliberately designed to erotically stimulate is certainly available and technosexuals who enjoy getting their tingles in this manner can do so with the help of a vast array of online videos and social media livestreams.

 

Finally, it might be noted, that whilst ASMR is certainly a real phenomenon, little scientific research has been conducted into it [2]. Thus, there's scant neuropsychophysiological data available at this time and this does make one rather skeptical of the claims made by some evangelical proponents who think that, like meditation and yoga, it has all kind of miraculous health benefits.  

 

Personally, I like to hear a woman whisper in a sexy voice or watch her apply her make-up as much as the next man, but I'm not convinced this is therapeutic - that it will, for example, assuage my anxiety, dispel my depression, or cure my insomnia. What's more, I suspect that many who claim they experience euphoria at the drop of a hat are simply kidding themselves. 

 

     

Notes

 

[1] It might reasonably be argued that this is simply a new name for an old thing. The Austrian writer Clemens Setz reminds us, for example, of the following passage in Mrs Dalloway (1925) in which a nursemaid speaks to her shell-shocked male patient, Septimus:

 

"'K … R …' said the nursemaid, and Septimus heard her say 'Kay Arr' close to his ear, deeply, softly, like a mellow organ, but with a roughness in her voice like a grasshopper's, which rasped his spine deliciously and sent running up into his brain waves of sound which, concussing, broke. A marvellous discovery indeed - that the human voice in certain atmospheric conditions (for one must be scientific, above all scientific) can quicken trees into life!" 

 

      Does this qualify Virginia Woolf as an ASMRtist? Arguably. Though what poet doesn't understand the power of the human voice? What musician doesn't appreciate the power of sound? What painter worth their salt doesn't know how to trigger a response from the viewer via visual stimuli? 

      Readers of German might like to see the article by Setz entitled 'High durch sich räuspernde Menschen', in Süddeutsche Zeitung, (6 April 2015): click here. See too the article by Cara Nicholson on Woolf and ASMR in The Isis Magazine that I link to beneath the lovely illustration by Sophie Kuang and Antonio Perricone at the top of this post. 

      The passage in Mrs Dalloway is in Part 1: Early Morning - 11.00 a.m.  

 

[2] Writing in a post published in March 2012 on his blog Neurologica, the academic clinical neurologist Steven Novella discussed the question of whether ASMR is a real phenomenon. Whilst inclined to think it was, he also said that a lot more scientific investigation was needed before it can be conclusively accepted as such: 

      "It is plausible that a subset of the population has a particular pattern of neural hard wiring so that when they experience certain things that are typically quietly satisfying they get a little extra shot to their pleasure center. Once they experience this then they seek out greater and greater triggers of this response, and perhaps then a learning or conditioning component kicks in. 

      [But] what we need at this point are functional MRI and transcranial magnetic stimulation studies that look at what is happening in the brains of people while experiencing ASMR ..." 

      To read the post in full, click here. 

 

 

This post is for Meni in the hope she won't find it as irritating as she does the tingling sensation of ASMR

 

Spectres of Marx and Derrida: A Post in Response to a 6/20 Paper by John Holroyd

 

The ghostly figures of Karl Marx (1818-1883) 

and Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)

'Deconstruction never had any meaning or interest 

other than as a radicalization of a certain spirit of Marxism ...'

 

I couldn't help thinking that John Holroyd's paper on Marx presented last night at Christian Michel's 6/20 [1] was something of a missed opportunity. For rather than simply rake over over the ashes of historical Marxism, he might have invoked the spirit of that untimely Marxism which continues to haunt capitalist society and the imagination of those concerned not with communism per se, but the possibility of radical critique. 

 

And rather than argue in favour of positive freedom - i.e., a fulfilled and unalienated form of existence lived within a harmonious community established upon an ideal of justice - Holroyd could have developed the idea of what might be termed posthumous freedom, by which one refers to a model of freedom invested with elements from the past and overshadowed by futurity; a model that embraces uncanny otherness thereby disrupting the presence of what is present (including the self), and renders the question of alienation a non-issue. 

 

That's not to say Holroyd's talk was uninteresting or poorly presented: in fact, Holroyd is an accomplished speaker who clearly has an excellent grasp of his material. But, it was essentially just a reminder of Marx and the messianic or religious nature of his work - the aspect which clearly most excites Holroyd - rather than a daring philosophical attempt to reimagine Marx in spectral form à la Derrida [2].    

 

Of course, Holroyd doesn't pretend to be a Derridean and probably has little truck with différance and deconstruction. And some might argue it's a little unfair to criticise a speaker for what they don't say, rather than focus on the issues that were addressed.

 

Nevertheless, for a writer interested in the persistence of ideas from the cultural and social past and intrigued by those thinkers, like Marx, whom Nietzsche calls posthumous individuals, Holroyd might at least have indicated he was aware of Derrida's seminal text on atemporal Marxism - and if he isn't, then this, in my view, is a serious shortcoming and I would respectfully suggest he add it to his reading list ASAP.      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] John Holroyd has a background in theology and philosophy and has taught religious studies (and other subjects) in schools (and online) for many years and lectured at the London School of Philosophy.  He is the author of Judging Religion: A Dialogue for Our Times (Silverwood Books, 2019). 

      Christian Michel is a French polymath who has graciously hosted the twice-monthly 6/20 Club at his west London home for almost twenty years, during which time an impressive assortment of speakers have presented papers on a huge number of topics. 

 

[2] Jacques Derrida's Spectres de Marx (Éditions Galilée, 1993) was trans. by Peggy Kamuf and published in English by Routledge the following year. 

      The ideas that Derrida introduces here - such as hauntology - were first presented in a series of lectures during a conference on the future of Marxism held at the University of California, Riverside in 1993. For Derrida, the spirit of Marx contines to haunt the modern social imaginary even in a world that is post-Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union (and this will continue to be the case so long as there is injustice, inequality, oppression, and exploitation). 

      For a critical reading of this text by Fredric Jameson, Antonio Negri, Terry Eagleton, and others, see Ghostly Demarcations, ed. Michael Sprinkler, (Verso, 1999).

 

 

A Brief History of the Mug Shot From Alphonse Bertillon to Andy Warhol

Top: Alphonse Bertillon's self-taken mugshot (1900)

Bottom: A canvas from Andy Warhol's Most Wanted Men series (1964)

 

I. 

 

Thanks to Donald Trump, everyone is talking about mug shots ... An informal term for a police photograph, typically taken soon after an individual's arrest in order to help with future identification [1].    

 

The act of photographing criminals began soon after the invention of photography in the 1840s, but it wasn't until 1888 that French police officer and biometrics expert Alphonse Bertillon standardised the process in terms of lighting and angles, etc. [2] 

 

His mug shot selfie, reproduced above, is typical; one side-view image and one face-on, against a plain background. Such photos are often compiled into a rogues gallery of images or a so-called mug book, although, in high-profile cases, the mug shot might also be circulated via the mass media and feature on wanted posters.

 

It is thanks to the latter phenomenon that mug shots gradually came to have a certain cachet and became fixed within the cultural imagination; the faces of gangsters such as Clyde Barrow, John Dillinger, and Al Capone, became as well-known as famous film stars and a whole host of Hollywood celebrities would eventually pride themselves on having had their own images captured by a police photographer.

 

Fascinated by both crime and celebrity, the American Pop artist Andy Warhol created a large mural of twenty-two mug shots in 1964 entitled Thirteen Most Wanted Men - a work which I would like to discuss below ...

 

 

II. 

 

Although Warhol had been commissioned to create a work for exhibition at the 1964 World's Fair in New York, Thirteen Most Wanted Men almost certainly wasn't what those who invited him to decorate the façade of the New York State pavilion had hoped for; in fact, the expectation was that he would produce a celebratory work that would represent the best - not the dark underbelly - of America. 

 

Partly inspired by a 1923 work by Marcel Duchamp, in which the French artist placed his own face on a wanted poster [3], Warhol decided to screen-print large-scale copies of images from a booklet published by the New York Police Department, entitled The Thirteen Most Wanted, and containing mug shots of dangerous criminals (including a child murderer) whom the authorities were anxious to arrest. 

 

As an anonymous critic writing for the Christie's website notes: "By elevating the criminal visage to a form of high art Warhol is aligning these nefarious figures with his own earlier celebrity portrayals." [4]   

 

Unfortunately, two weeks before the fair was due to open, Warhol was officially informed that he must remove or replace the work within 24-hours. Not wanting to do either, Warhol instead gave his permission for the 30-metre wide canvas to be painted over with silver house paint prior to the opening of the Fair [5].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Mug, of course, is an English slang term for (usually an ugly) face, dating from the 18th century. Often, when posing for a mugshot, a person will pull a face in an attempt to distort their features, thereby making future identification by a law enforcement agent a little more troublesome (thus we speak of mugging for the camera).  

 

[2] Bertillon was one of the founding fathers of forensic anthropometry; i.e., a system of identification based on the finding that that several measures of physical features - such as the size and shape of the skull - remain fairly constant throughout adult life. Bertillon concluded that when these measurements were made and recorded systematically, individual criminals could effectively be differentiated. 

 

[3] Created in 1923, Duchamp's Wanted: $2,000 Reward lithograph was the final work of art he completed before leaving New York that year to return to Paris. 

      Duchamp pasted two mug shots of himself on a joke poster he'd come across and had a printer add another alias to those already listed; that of his recently invented alter ego Rrose Sélavy. Duchamp re-created the (now lost original) work throughout his career and hoped it would played a significant role in the (de)construction of his artistic identity.

 

[4] See the essay on the Christie's website entitled 'Warhol's Most Wanted' (16 May 2018): click here.

      One can't help wondering why it is that the male homosexual gaze so often lingers on the faces and bodies of violent felons; is it the inevitable result of criminalising love? Or is it simply an inconvenient truth that evil attracts and has a more photogenic quality? Richard Meyer touches on these questions in his book Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Art (Oxford University Press, 2002).

 

[5] The official reason given was that the Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, was concerned that the images of mostly Italian-Americans would be offensive to a significant section of his electorate. However, it is also believed that Warhol himself was dissatisfied with the work and so more-than happy to have been afforded the opportunity to paint it over in his favoured colour of negation. 

      Warhol would later use the original silkscreens to produce paintings in his Most Wanted Men series and many of these were exhibited in Paris, Cologne, and London, in 1967-68.

 

On the Evil Genius of the Image: Notes on the Mugshots of Donald Trump and Hermann Göring

Mugshots of Donald Trump (24 August, 2023) 

and Hermann Göring (22 June 1945)

 

 

So much has already been said about Donald Trump's instantly iconic mugshot taken at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia - apparently the most viewed photograph in the world - that there's not much for me to add. 

 

The muted grey background is rather flattering and deflects from the harshness of the lighting. Trump, wearing a blue suit with a white shirt and red tie, stares down not just the anonymous prison photographer, but all of his political opponents and critics in the mainstream media. 

 

It's a fuck you look of angry defiance and with this one image, Trump brilliantly turns the tables on those who had hoped to humiliate him and, perhaps, seals victory in the 2024 presidential election. For this photo, available on a wide range of merchandising (i.e., commercial propaganda), has already helped the Trump campaign to raise millions of dollars.   

 

Malcolm McLaren may have showed us how to create cash from chaos, but it's Donald Trump who best understands how to monetise notoriety and I think that the conservative commentator Candace Owens is right to describe Trump's approach to doing politics as punk rock (something that Johnny Rotten had pointed out years ago) [1]. 

 

Even those who loathe Trump concede that this picture is, in its simplicity, visually compelling. One that has not only historical but cultural significance; i.e., one that can be discussed in relation to art as well as politics. Zach Helfand amusingly - and rightly - discusses it within the context of work by Da Vinci, Henri Fantin-Latour, and Andy Warhol [2].  

 

Helfand also suggests that the Trump mugshot has a precedent in the arrest photograph of Hermann Göring, which, as I think readers will agree, is an excellent spot. For we see in this image of the president of the Nazi Reichstag the exact same mixture of indignation and contempt for his enemies as in the Trump photo; it's a portrait of a powerful man cornered, but unbowed.

 

One wonders, in closing, why it is exactly that good people never seem to produce such captivating images: Is is because they always like to smile and signal their virtue? Is it because they lack menace? Or is it simply the case, whether we like to admit this or not, that evil has a more photogenic quality?  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the Candace Owens podcast on the The Daily Wire (20 August 2023) in which she gives her take on the Trump mugshot and discusses the positive reactions of other black Americans: click here. 

      As for Johnny Rotten, the former Sex Pistol declared his support for Trump several years ago - and voted for him in 2020 - seeing in him something of a kindred spirit (anti-liberal, anti-establishment, anti-woke). See Drew Wardle's 2021 article in the online magazine Far Out, in which he expresses his disappointment with Rotten's MAGA brand of conservatism and offers a possible explanation for it: click here. 

 

[2] See Zach Helfand, 'The Trump Mug Shot's Art-Historical Lineage', in The New Yorker (28 August, 2023): click here. 

 

 

Video bonus: to watch Trump's own take on having his mugshot taken on Forbes Breaking News (1 Sept 2023): click here.  

Flaco the Owl and the Skeleton Tree

Photo by David Barrett of Flaco the Owl alongside 

Heide Hatry's Skeleton Tree

 

"If you hear him hoot, scoot / If you pass his tree, flee

If you catch his eye, fly / Don't wait to say goodbye." [1]

 

 

There are some stories in the news that you wish you didn't have to hear about; stories involving murdered babies, for example [2].

 

On the other hand, however, there are some stories which you wish you had heard about sooner and the case of Flaco, a male Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped his long-time enclosure at a zoo in New York City and took up residence in Central Park in February of this year, is one such story ...

Why? Because his story has not only captured the imagination of New Yorkers, but makes many other people, myself included, genuinely happy. I think we can all identify with this bird in some small way. 

 

Obviously there are concerns for his future safety and wellbeing. 

 

But, push comes to shove, I side with those who have petitioned for Flaco's right to freedom and oppose any further attempts to recapture him - particularly as he seems to be perfectly capable of looking after himself, successfully catching and eating prey, as evidenced by the bones of small mammals, mostly rats, found at the foot of his favourite elm tree and turned into a lovely work of art by Heide Hatry [3], which she recently posted on her Instagram account: click here.  

 

Originally taken to Central Park Zoo in 2010, when he was just a few months old, Flaco was kept in a small enclosure with steel mesh, fake rocks, and a painted backdrop, for more than twelve years and I can't see why anyone with a heart would want to lock him up again.

 

So, if zoo keepers want to monitor him, that's fine - but let them do so as he lives freely in the park, delighting visitors and fans around the world.  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Lyrics from the song 'Foul Owl', written by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, and Quincy Jones. The song features on the soundtrack to the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night (dir. Norman Jewison) and is performed by Boomer & Travis: click here.

 

[2] I'm referring to the terrible case of Lucy Letby, a 33-year-old nurse found guilty of murdering seven babies (and attempting to murder six other infants) whilst working on a hospital's neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016.

 

[3] Heide Hatry is a German-born artist and a long-time resident of New York City. Her work has often featured and been discussed on Torpedo the Ark: readers who are interested can go to labels and click on her name. Her website can be visited by clicking here. 

Memories of Killing Joke (1984 - 1987)

Killing Joke in their mid-80s splendour

(L-R: Geordie Walker / Paul Raven / Jaz Coleman / Paul Ferguson) 

 

A correspondent writes: 

I got the impression from a recent post [1] that you were something of a Killing Joke fan back in the mid-1980s and I was hoping you might expand on this - did you, for example, ever see them live in this period, when, in my view, they were at their very best? 

 

Well, as a matter of fact, I did see them live on at least three occasions; as attested to by the following entries in the Von Hell Diaries (1980-89) ...

   

 

Sunday 1 Jan 1984

Hammersmith Palais: felt a bit like a hippie event with people sitting on the floor. Having said that, there were some fantastic looking individuals amongst the assembled freaks and morons. The support band were the March Violets: who were shit. An inferior Sisters of Mercy (who are also shit, by the way). Is there something in the water in Leeds?

      There was also a young male stripper prior to Killing Joke making their entrance on to the stage. All the punks began to pogo as if on cue (to the latter, not the former). To be honest, the set got a bit dull half-way through; I suspect that all gigs are at their best in the first ten minutes with the initial release of energy. 

      Mostly, the group played old songs and I was a bit miffed that they didn't play any of my favourite tracks from Fire Dances (although they did do a rousing version of 'The Gathering' as an encore). Jaz Coleman [2] is a captivating performer. The rest of the band are essentially just solid musicians (albeit ones who look the part and know how to create a magnificent noise). 

 

 

Sunday 3 February 1985

 

Off with Andy [3] to see Killing Joke at the Hammersmith Palais once again ...

      Lots of punks out and about on the streets of West London - and lots of police to keep 'em in line. Felt like a mug having to queue up for tickets. Met Kirk [4] inside as arranged, though he fucked off to watch the show from the balcony with some video director friend of his. A couple of support bands: Heist and Pale Fountains; neither of whom were much cop. Killing Joke came on to all the usual fanfare - and Gary Glitter's 'Leader of the Gang'. 

      The set was made up of tracks from the new album - Night Time - and the first two albums (nothing from Revelations or Fire Dances). Became separated from Andy and made my way to the front. Got so hot that I seriously thought I was going to spontaneously combust (though probably sweating too much for that). Brilliant night: almost tempted to describe it as a (neo-pagan) religious experience - song, dance, and Dionysian frenzy. Even Andy enjoyed it (I think).   

 

 

Sunday 28 September 1986

 

Back to the Hammersmith Palais for what seems to be becoming an annual event in the company of Killing Joke. Not a bad show, but nowhere near as good as last year. It also felt like a much shorter set; one which opened with 'Twilight of the Mortal' and closed with 'Wardance'.  

      Most - if not all - of the songs were from the first, fifth and (yet to be released) sixth album. The new tracks sounded great - and Jazz looked amusingly grotesque as he blew kisses to his brothers and sisters - but the performance never really took off. And so, I went home feeling a little disappointed.      

 

 

Finally, it might also interest my correspondent (and other readers) to know that I once met Jaz Coleman, at Abbey Road Studios:

 

 

Friday 7 August 1987

 

Lee Ellen [5] rang this morning: she said if I got over to Virgin by 1 o'clock, then she'd take me with her to the studio where Killing Joke were recording and introduce me to Jaz Coleman (having reassured him that I wasn't some lunatic fan). 

      Jaz was much smaller in person than expected and had strangely feminine hands, with long, slim fingers. He also dressed in a disconcertingly conventional manner. Geordie, the good-looking guitarist, was there, but the rest of the band, apparently, had been fired.

      Jaz played tapes of the new material (just the music - no vocals); sounded good (quasi-symphonic). He said the new album would be called Outside the Gate - which is a great title [6] - and that it would bring the Killing Joke project to perfection. After completing it, he planned to emigrate to New Zealand. 

      Mr. Coleman also took great pride in showing me parts of a book he'd been working on for eight years and we talked, very briefly, about D. H. Lawrence's Apocalypse (which he liked) and Yeats's Vision (which he didn't like). 

      Before leaving, Jaz expressed his desire to converse at greater length one day and I very much look forward to that (should such a day ever in fact arrive) [7].   

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm guessing the post referred to was 'Musical Memories' (30 Aug 2023): click here - although I do mention Jaz Coleman and Killing Joke in several other posts on Torpedo the Ark. 

 

[2] Jaz Coleman; lead singer with post-punk British band Killing Joke.

 

[3] Andy Greenfield; friend and, at this time, a Ph.D student at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington.

 

[4] Kirk Field; friend and, at this time, lead singer and lyricist with the band Delicious Poison. 

 

[5] Lee Ellen Newman; friend and, at this time, Deputy Head of Press at Virgin.  

 

[6] In fact, I thought this was such a great title that I later borrowed it for my Ph.D - although the phrase outside the gate can be found in Nietzsche and D. H. Lawrence, and is also often used in occult circles.

 

[7] It hasn't so far. 

 

 

Although there were bootleg audio recordings made of all three gigs discussed above and these are now available on YouTube, they are of such poor quality that they don't give a fair representation of just how good a live band Killing Joke were (and to diehard fans still are). Readers are therefore invited to click here to watch a performance recorded live in Munich, at the Alalabamahalle, on 25 March 1985, for broadcast on German TV.