member of:Observers of the Interdependence of Domestic Objects and Their Influence on Everyday Life
This group has been active for a long time and has already made some remarkable assertions which render life simpler from the practical point of view. For example, I move a pot of green color five centimeters to the right, I push in the thumbtack beside the comb and if Mr. A (another adherent like me) at this moment puts his volume about bee-keeping beside a pattern for cutting out vests, I am sure to meet on the sidewalk of the avenida Madero a woman who intrigues me and whose origin and address I never could have known... --Remedios Varo
(Slideshow is of Artwork by Remedios Varo)
By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired. --Franz Kafka
Earlier in the year, I discovered Borges' Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (see link to the right of the blog), in which the narrator discovered planted evidence of a planet he deemed fictitious in an encyclopedia. As his life went on, he found other references to the planet, and was struck by the detail of history, mythology, and language that had been built up to seemingly no purpose. By the end of the story, the purpose became clear, as the non-existent planet began a relentless yet violence-free occupation of Earth, supplanting "our" history, science, architecture, language and mythology with its own. In this bizarre, incredible tale, the humans of Earth conquered themselves, allowing a peaceful takeover by the small group of unknown people who had created the record of that false planet.
Since that discovery, I have been taken in by various artistic projects that seem similar in the vast expanse of their creative tendencies: for example the Codex Seraphinianus, where Luigi Serafini created just such an encyclopedic text, completely devoted to an imaginary planet, with its cultures, flora, fauna, and mythologies (etc), written in a language yet to be decoded (the text was created in 1976). Today, I have found yet another artist of far-flung, immense creativity, who is in the process of creating an unspoiled, hidden valley, deep in the Burmese Jungle, complete with new (to us) fauna, which he is sharing with the public only through his drawings and the specimens and notes that he has brought back from his journeys, in order to protect the species from the perils of human intervention.
(photo by Erik Hecht)
His business card, made for a show earlier this summer in Seattle, Washington, and which he will send you given an address, reads:
"Dr. Filbert Montauk of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has returned from a six year wilderness trip into some of the least hospitable lands in the world. The purpose of this trip was to discover unrecorded pockets of genetic diversity. Many thought he perished years ago; instead he has returned claiming to have found a lost valley hidden deep within the Burmese Jungle. He refuses to take anyone to his discovery; instead he has brought back journals and specimens. The zoological community has had a mixed reception to Dr. Montauk's findings. Scientists are insulted by his lack of cooperation, and many are suggesting foul play. Nevertheless, the doctor refuses to reveal the exact location of the valley in order to protect it from human intervention. Montauk's journals and specimens are slowly being released to the public. He is meticulously editing his findings in order to prevent others from deciphering clues about the location of his lost paradise."
Flightless Birds
(The text is small here, sorry. It reads: "Gallirallus Contraedes. I have observed many of these flightless birds racing through the trees of the valley. They travel in much the same way antelope do on the plains of Africa. When threatened they condense into a solid mass and run at tremendous speeds. I have never witnessed birds act in this way. Their density and speed is astounding. At night they cluster in secluded corners of the jungle. They look like red doughballs pressed against one another. Every once in a while one will peek its head out the top of the mass to keep watch.")
"The modern structure for protecting endangered animals is inherently synthetic. Many species are removed from their habitat, protected in simulated environments, and are reintroduced when mature. With Unnatural Selection I'm projecting a potential future for conservation. As more fragile animals are lost, it's suggested we turn to bio-engineering to create new more adaptable creatures for the modern world, or alter those that currently exist to function in a new way. For decades scientists have been bioengineering our crops and our livestock; they could eventually turn to bioengineering biodiversity."
He creates sketches, stories of discovery, mating calls and habits, lifestyle, and makes clay and faux-fur "specimens".
Installation for "Unnatural Selection"
Bovinae Breevi
Austrocochlea Proboscis
You can watch him at work in this video by Erik Hecht:
Andrea Barberini is an artist residing in Italy, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. After discovering the collage book of Max Ernst, Une Semaine du Bonte, he set out to create a book of his own using a similar collage style. He created the background and characters for his tale from images he found in the Encyclopedia of Diderot and D'Alambert from the XVIII century--the first encyclopedia in history. From there, he cut and pasted illustrations "according to my mood and fancy," using anatomy books, history books, and anything else he could find. After several years, he decided that the book should have a text, and he created this fictional "autobiography" with its very surreal flavor. I discovered the book when he made a video of it on YouTube, under the screen name "shivabel." On his page, he has also made available generous selections from several artistic texts, such as the Ernst collage book and also the Codex Seraphinianus (Luigi Serafini), and the Parallel Botany (leo Lionni), setting them to music with great sensitivity. His YouTube Page is thus a great resource.
His Mitobiografia, followed by a translation of the text and some of its images, is here:
"The Mitobiografia is totally imaginary, so please consider every reference to facts or persons, first and foremost my person, as merely casual or arbitrary.
1- In the beginning was the fortuitous meeting, in front of a respectably bourgeois house, between a slime of liquid fire and a naked snail. Never far away was the archetypal sacrifice of the young supplicant.
[The liquid fire and naked snail are sexual symbols, their meeting leading to a birth. This is the recurring cycle of life: birth and sacrifice...]
"In Front of a Respectably Bourgeois House..."
2- The scream of the sacrificed froze the world for the eternity of a moment.
3- Little by little, I felt myself swelling and expanding past what seemed possible, while confused yet tangible presences insufflated me with the breath of life.
4- The shapeless being that I had become was then cheerfully tortured by pitilessly well-intentioned persons; they carefully and attentively used obscure and secret devices about which only they were knowledgeable.
"Pitilessly Well-Intentioned Persons..."
5-My seraphic mother was blissfully unaware of the tragedy of my childhood.
"My Seraphic Mother..."
6- Every morning, at daybreak, my severed head watched its executioner break my body to pieces in a constant, repeated nightmare.
7- The environment in which I grew up came out very soon as a place of perdition, an ambiguous den for degenerates where, behind a mask of respectability, the most vile and vicious persons arranged to meet.
8-One day, i took advantage of the inattention of a guardian and i ran away into the wild, far away from these horrible places.
9-I was welcomed among wild and thoughtful persons. They offered to me a nourishing meal and a contagious joy. For the first time in my life I felt I was happy.
10-But I was discovered and, sadly, I was forced to return to my house. There, I took advantage of the frequent quarrels of my parents to devote myself to obscure trades which allowed me to explore my true nature.
11-Irresponsible and presumptuous friends continually harassed me during the hours i dedicated to study, urging me to think more in line with what would help me attain a respectable job.
12-Anxious and naive, i warmed myself at the flame of Truth burning my fingers and, feigning indifference, i tried to hear the pressing questions of the Cosmic Mother. But, not a word from the silent oracle, nothing but incomprehensible noises.
"At the Flame of Truth"
13-Behind a mask of shadows, I wildly watched the obscene miracle of the temptation.
14-My anguish prevented me from showing to all people the innocence of my crime. Shy and childish, i hid myself in the most secluded places from the faintest hint of another's presence.
15-In these unhealthy paradises, the heavenly wine of ecstasy was ceaselessly distilled, and I drank of it to inebriation, a blissful victim.
16-But as soon as I closed my eyes I could clearly hear the words full of poison pronounced by a female voice. A sad and cruel lament. My head burned.
"My Head Burned"
17-Recovered from the fever, I opened my eyes and I was dazzled by Beauty. Mad with joy, I stripped myself of all decency, and crazy for passion, I was able to take Her away from Her prostrated parents.
18-She was my prisoner, and I showed Her pale and silent face to the few privileged only, stingily.
19-Restless, every day I questioned the mute simulacrum, the black mirror of my desire. And She questioned me.
20-I was satisfied even if I only observed her, happy and playful, in my study.
21- With time, i can only ascribe to a divine gesture the awakening of a new sensuality, more sweet, more delicate, which filled my heart with secret joys. I returned to life.
22-At last, we decided to set off to a long journey. But first we consulted the strange animal of a gipsy child. After hearing the response, we abandoned the last pretense, and we run, full of fear and desire, to the open sea.
23-The phantom of paternity was already waiting in my future's dreams..."
THE END
Recently, his sister visited some caves in Italy and took many magical photos, showing a natural landscape that could easily have influenced Max Ernst's famous "frottage" style, most clearly seen in "Europe After the Rain," and "The Eye of Silence." The video of those photos, set to music by Diamanda Galas, is here:
"Discover for yourself, reader, such wonders as the purple-caged citrus, the spider-web flower, the parfait protea, and the ladder weed. This is a world inhabited by weird half-sentient flora such as the tadpole tree and the meteor-fruit, by the lacy flying-saucer fish, the wheeled caterpillar-rumped horse, and the metamorphic bicranial rhino. The planet’s sentient species are here as well—races like the Garbage-Dwellers, the Road-Traffic and the Yarn People, and the exotic Rodent-Skin Wearers… Nor can we forget to mention the Homo-Saurians, whose unusual sexual life-cycle is graphically described." (From the inside jacket of the Codex Seraphinianus)
In 1940, Jorge Luis Borges wrote Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, a fascinating account of the accidental discovery of an irregular addition to volume XLVI of a set of encyclopedias. The addition described the language, arts, geography, and history of an otherwise seemingly non-existent country, Uqbar, and its discovery left its two readers completely flummoxed. After a passage of time, the narrator happens upon another odd text, this time an entire volume which seems to have no twin in the world, and this time the entire book is devoted to the description of a planet, Tlön. He tells us:
(translations to English from http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/borges-tlon.html)
"Two years before I had discovered, in a volume of a certain pirated encyclopedia, a superficial description of a nonexistent country; now chance afforded me something more precious and arduous. Now I held in my hands a vast methodical fragment of an unknown planet's entire history, with its architecture and its playing cards, with the dread of its mythologies and the murmur of its languages, with its emperors and its seas, with its minerals and its birds and its fish, with its algebra and its fire, with its theological and metaphysical controversy. And all of it articulated, coherent, with no visible doctrinal intent or tone of parody."
He goes on to describe some of the characteristics of this planet, for example the languages of the northern hemisphere, which are based almost entirely on the "monosyllabic adjective. The noun is formed by an accumulation of adjectives. They do not say "moon," but rather "round airy-light on dark" or "pale-orange-of-the-sky" or any other such combination. In the example selected the mass of adjectives refers to a real object, but this is purely fortuitous. The literature of this hemisphere (like Meinong's subsistent world) abounds in ideal objects, which are convoked and dissolved in a moment, according to poetic needs. At times they are determined by mere simultaneity. There are objects composed of two terms, one of visual and another of auditory character: the color of the rising sun and the faraway cry of a bird. There are objects of many terms: the sun and the water on a swimmer's chest, the vague tremulous rose color we see with our eyes closed, the sensation of being carried along by a river and also by sleep. These second-degree objects can be combined with others; through the use of certain abbreviations, the process is practically infinite. There are famous poems made up of one enormous word. This word forms a poetic object created by the author."
In a postscript to the story, the narrator explains that new information has come to light, clarifying some of the mysteries surrounding the planet Tlön. A written confession has been discovered, detailing the existence of a secret society through several generations which sought to prove to a, in their eyes, "nonexistent God that mortal man was capable of conceiving a world." In a creepy turn of events, objects begin to appear which corroborate the actual existence of the planet, the first such object a compass with Tlön script on its metal case. Such intrusions of fantasy into the real world escalate until finally, the history of Tlön is being taught in the schools, Earth's science and archeology--its memories-- are being pushed aside for their Tlön counterparts, and the children are being taught to speak the language of Tlön. The story becomes a completely peaceful takeover of the planet Earth by a non-existent alien race.
In 1976, Italian artist Luigi Serafini began work on just such a project--though I make no claims as to his hopes for a takeover of the planet. It is a masterfully illustrated encyclopedia of an unknown planet, with each illustration described, detailed, and explained in an unrecognizable alphabet. The alphabet has defied the attempts, so far, of linguists to break its code, even though a Rosetta Stone is given in the book--to another unknown language. According to Wikipedia, "Serafini has stated that the script of the Codex is asemic, and that his experience in writing it was closely similar to automatic writing." Though the writing has yet to be deciphered, many studies of it have been made. There is, for example, a brief analysis on the page (http://www.math.bas.bg/~iad/serafin.html):
"Which brings us back to the writing system. (I'm only discussing words written in majuscules here -- titles of chapters, sections, subsections and paragraphs, for the most part.) Several dozen different characters appear in them, far too many for the writing system to be an alphabet, and there are too many long words for it to be a syllabary. Some characters occur very many times, others only once or twice. What is even more striking, however, is the tendency of the characters, even the less frequent ones, to reoccur within the same word or group of words (e.g., within the titles of the various subsections and paragraphs in a section). If a character occurs in a word at all, there's a good chance that it occurs there at least twice -- perhaps thrice in a row (which is next to unseen in any sort of phonetic writing system), up to six times altogether. It is as if the headers of most pages in an English book were such words as bookkeeper, googol, grammar, Ouagadougou and Wassamassaw. "
The numbering system has been deciphered. Meaning, it is an actual working system, though completely foreign to us. It is explained fully on the same webpage, with a few added notes:
"Telefol counting starts with the fingers of the left hand (1 being the pinky), progresses from the thumb (5) to the wrist, lower arm, elbow, upper arm and shoulder (6--10), the side of the neck, ear and eye (11--13) and thence through the nose (14) and right eye (15) to the right pinky finger (27). The Telefol idea of a very large number is kakkat=14*27=378. "
The book is filled with fantastic images.
The structure of the book is as follows:
"The Codex is divided into eleven chapters, partitioned into two sections. The first section appears to describe the natural world, dealing with flora, fauna, and physics. The second deals with the humanities, the various aspects of human life: clothing, history, cuisine, architecture and so on. Each chapter seems to treat a general encyclopedic topic. The topics of each separate chapter are as follows:
* The first chapter describes many alien types of flora: strange flowers, trees that uproot themselves and migrate, etc.
* The second chapter is devoted to the fauna of this alien world, depicting many animals that are surreal variations of the horse, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, birds, etc.
* The third chapter deals with what seems to be a separate kingdom of odd bipedal creatures, apparently engineered for various purposes. * The fourth chapter deals with something that seems to be physics and chemistry, and is by far the most abstract and enigmatic. * The fifth chapter deals with bizarre machines and vehicles.
* The sixth chapter explores the general humanities: biology, sexuality, various aboriginal peoples, and even shows examples of plant life and tools (such as pens and wrenches) grafted directly into the human body.
* The seventh chapter is historical. It shows many people (some only vaguely human) of unknown significance, giving their times of birth and death. It also depicts many scenes of historical (and possibly religious) significance. Also included are examples of burial and funereal customs. * The eighth chapter depicts the history of the Codex's alien writing system.
* The ninth chapter deals with food, dining practices, and clothing. * The tenth chapter describes bizarre games (including playing cards and board games) and athletic sports.
* The eleventh chapter is devoted entirely to architecture." (FROM WIKIPEDIA, with images inserted from various sites.)
On the page http://www.believermag.com/issues/200705/?read=article_taylor, Justin Taylor claims:
"As a book-object...the Codex’s only real precursor [!] is The Voynich Manuscript. Discovered by the Polish book collector Wilfrid M. Voynich in a wooden chest at an Italian Jesuit college in 1912, the heavily illustrated manuscript was worked on by top code-crackers during World War II. They failed. It’s never been deciphered. Theories on its origin and significance abound, including the theory that the manuscript is a fraud perpetrated by Voynich himself, but the most popular and conclusive theory attributes the work to Roger Bacon, the medieval Franciscan friar who, in his Letter Concerning the Marvelous Power of Art and Nature and the Nullity of Magic, noted that 'certain persons have achieved concealment by means of letters not then used by their own race or others but arbitrarily invented by themselves.'”
One thing should be pointed out here: the author of this codex is still very much alive. Meaning, we could have a full translation and explanation any day now. But I don't think we will.
According to Shelley Jackson, author of Patchwork Girl,
"It’s important that it bothers you with the feeling that there is some content that you ought to be able to extract from it in a normal discursive kind of way. It’s meant to appeal to the rational or exegetical urge. It wants to be interpreted but it won’t let you, and it’s very interesting the way it teasingly asks to be read and then refuses. You could see this as a really really elaborate inkblot. It’s never going to completely yield to you in the sense of giving you insight into the artist’s intentions, so it kind of reverts you back on yourself and makes you notice what you’re noticing and notice the associations that you make. It’s a kind of springboard for your own creative musings.”
And I think that's key: your own creative musings. Keep that in mind for a minute.
Several years ago, there was an experiment run by a psychologist named Daniel Simmons. He showed the test subjects a video of groups of guys in black shirts and white shirts, tossing basketballs back and forth to each other on a court. He told the subjects to count the number of times a basketball got passed between the guys in white shirts. Halfway through the video, a gorilla-suited woman walked across the basketball court, and hardly anyone noticed. Why? Because they'd already been told what the important information was. How do you miss a gorilla? By working from a framework that causes your subconscious to discard the presence of the gorilla as unimportant information, before its presence even registers in your subconscious. And this experiment has been repeated many times, in various places, with the same results.
So I'm going to end here by pointing you back to the Foucault quote in my sidebar, where he refers to an excerpt of another Borges work, these quotes together reminding me of the importance of exposing yourself to as many outlandish and impossible modes of thinking as possible, and as often as possible, in order to erase more and more of the boundaries and limitations on your own system of thought, and thus your own ability to see all the gorillas that might be passing in front of you.
The Codex Seraphinianus is today's offering.
Note: YouTube user shivabel has uploaded this lovely, generous video of a large excerpt from the Codex Seraphinianus, showing you many, many more of the fantastic illustrations. The video is set to music by Penguin Cafe Orchestra:
“This book first arose out of a passage in [Jorge Luis] Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought—our thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography—breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things, and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other. This passage quotes a ‘certain Chinese encyclopaedia’ in which it is written that ‘animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) suckling pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies’. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that.”
Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (New York: Pantheon, 1970) xv.
"Everything leads me to think that, in the near future, reality will be considered exclusively as a mere state of depression and inactivity of the mind" --Salvador Dali
(photo by Erik Hecht)
Installation for "Unnatural Selection"
(3.5" x 5")
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