Foucault- Heterotopias, Tom de Freston

Foucault postulates that the 19th Century’s great obsession was with History. By default, therefore, he confirms his belief that history is an artificial construct. Such a construct is part of a broad obsession with categorization and the desire for knowledge and truth. This is all the inevitable by product of a society which had raised doubts over previous certainties such as religion. With the central belief system damaged they sought more scientific and empirically measurable forms of truth. History was just one of many disciplines which needed to be invented, ordered housed and institutionalized. This gave rise to the birth of the museum.

Foucault’s essay concerns itself, predominantly, with a discussion with the historical shifts in space. He discusses that there has been a shift from a space of binary oppositions, of the near and far, open and closed, private and public and sacred and profane. Without deviating too far it would be interesting to see what he made of the technological revolution, the internet and its many manifestations, has surely given rise to a whole new experience and existence in terms of our relation to space. Geographical barriers have dissolved our need to receive information, communicate and purchase no longer requires a journey to a specific, concrete and tangible space. Instead we can move between realms with the click of a mouse.

Space, Foucault argues, has a History in Western culture, and it’s always closely bound to our experience of time. The progression and evolution of this history has marched on to new venues in recent time.

Foucault argues that Heterotopias are a specific kind of space which exist today. The homogeneity of space, or at least the dialectical interrelation of spaces, has been eroded. In its place is a system of spaces which creates a heterogeneous landscape. The is a geographic of multiple layers, one which devours binary oppositions and gives birth to a more complex network of relationships, all mingling to create a kind of black hole, a cavernous void. There is no space between or no central venue; there is no definable point to measure against. It is the nightmare of structuralism. As Foucault states:

“We live inside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another”

The train is the clichéd example given, a place in which we can sit, a form which takes us between two distant points, an object which passes us as we remain stationary within one place. The ground and existence within the geography of a train might be multiply layered, by its still a ground well worn; so perhaps not worth discussing weakly and further here.

Foucault labels a certain kind of space as ‘Heterotopias’. My instinct is to be cynical to the classification through labeling, thus allowing us to believe in a set of relations due to the umbrella terms which sits above the discussion and protects us from the truth of difference and ambiguity. The definition requires the appreciation of a Utopia as a platonic ideal, a place which cannot exist in tangible or real form. They are unreal spaces, merely a by product of our belief in what actual space would be if cleansed and purified through some kind of philosophical filter.

He defines Heterotopias as spaces equivalent to that which exists in a mirror. These are spaces which exist in relation to real spaces, and can only exist because of that real space. Yet there is a certain placelessness in the space within the mirror, for it does not actually exist, yet we know it is the product of the existence of a real space which we occupy at the time. It informs us of our occupation and the space in which we belong. It tells us that we are over there, over there being here. It is a place which does not exist itself, but informs us.

The shifts in space is described in the shift in cemeteries. They have moved from being a fulcrum of society, placed centrally within the city, next to the church. They were confirmation of the passing of our souls and crucial aspects of our existence and moral and spiritual well being. Not denying other aspects of the cemetery, with the type of burial still mirroring the deceased’s socio economic standing. Foucault describes this as a ‘hierarchy of tombs’.

Yet as the west has become increasingly doubtful ands skeptical about the existence in a god and an afterlife we have become increasingly obsessed with our mortal remains. We live in ‘the cult of the dead.’ Foucault argues that is natural for a society who believes in an afterlife to not put so much emphasis on our remains, the corpse is seen as an empty vessel, due to the spirits ascension to heaven. Yet the importance rises when we consider the process of decay, the fleshy corpse within a box, to be our final destination. Foucault describes an almost fetishistic, ritualistic obsession with our ‘own little box of personal decay’.

Thus the cemetery has moved to the outskirts; no longer the heart of the city, no longer the spiritual haven confirming transcendence, the passing of our souls to another destination. Rather it becomes the place on the outskirts of the city, becoming ‘the other city’, the eternal stagnant resting place of a rotting corpse. A new binary opposition, a dark mirror of life.

That Foucault choices to label Museums and Libraries under a similar umbrella term says as much about his approach as it does the spaces themselves. It should also be noted that gardens are discussed under this title of Heterotopias. It is a system which looks to cast its net wide in order to uncover certain elements of the zeitgeist, that elusive and fashionable spirit.

Foucault sees Museums as timeless places, venues outside of society, existing in relation and opposition to other spaces. A museum is a palimpsest, a continual accumulation of time. Foucault sees them as idealistic and evolving beasts, ‘heterotopias in which time never stops building up and topping its own summit.’

He describes the museum as embalmed venues, able to exist outside of the normal flow, destruction and passing. Places ordered and categoriesed, providing stationary points which build corridors of pauses. It is, he states, a notion formed directly from our notions of modernity, spaces which are a by product of the 19th Centuries most intrinsic beliefs.

It seems they are formed from the same system which forms modern cemeteries. With the belief in a higher state gone, it becomes of utter most importance to provide sanctuary to the life and existence of all earthly possessions. The fetish for the object and the religiosity of its celebration and display is a by product of this fear and doubt.

These spaces require the construction of rituals and codes. They become sanctified spaces, demanding a certain form and type of behavior from the visitor. It is this which creates the veneer of these institutions as elite establishments, as codified venues designs only for an elite section of society. The bourgeois and the rising and spreading middle class claim to find ways to make these spaces increasingly accessible. Yet in truth they desire a venue which celebrates there supposed intellectual, academic, economic and moral superiority. It is, after all, these values which the places are founded on and on which these individuals society is built. Such values are at the core of a humanity which is otherwise bankrupt and bereft of values. Thus we move towards Foucault’s other argument for museums, as being parallel to prisons. That is for another time.

Tom de Freston- diary entry

I purchased a  tube of Acrylic Vermillion today, having fallen in love with a tiny tube of Goache Vermillion that I had in a multiset. Its like Cadmium red, but better. Its got such a vibrant, luminous glow. It seems to have a particular potency when applied reasonably thinly, so that the light can work its way through. I can only imagine how sublime Michael Hardings ‘Chinese Vermillion- oil’ must be. Its bloody £80 for a small pot.

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Multiple fragments are brought together in this image. The foreground is populated by a series of characters that arrive loaded with certain associations. The background is covered buy three frames that depict the same figure in various melodramatic contortions and performances across a bed.

The image looks to deal with narrative in painting. The presentation of various moments in flux, a kind of looped moment of horror, is a nod to such devices in artists such as Titian, bacon and Francesca Woodman.

Rather than present a linear narrative the work looks to play on the ambiguity of painting. Links and associations are made between parts without a coherent whole every being pieced together. The picture collapses under the scrutiny of total logic. The artificiality and instability is apt, as this is a central theme of the works content. Thus the mechanics of viewing reflect the nature of the subject matter.

The martyr is a strange type of hero. Decapitated the figure presents his head, as a trophy, like some medieval depiction of a decapitated saint.

The image attempts to push the horror to a point of excess where the tragedy becomes comedy. The empathy lies not in the extent of the paint but the magnitude of the emptiness. The silent scream is not a destination of true terror, but, through the mirroring of the empty sex, a venue of strange wit.

In Caravaggio’s ‘David and Goliath’ (1610) the hero presents the viewer with the screaming head of Goliath; David remains stoically calm despite the obvious magnitude of his heroism. Viewed from today the image, whilst great, seems ludicrous in the depth of its theatricality.

I restaged the image, performing a series of dramatic poses and gestures which similarly looked hold out a hand as if presenting a victors trophy to the audience. These performances lead to a series of prints.

The emptiness of the hand exposes the figures dramatic self importance to ridicule. His heroic nudity if castrated by his wearing of socks and boxers. Is there anything more pathetic than socks and boxers? The regal crimson and red is merely meant to provide another clash between the figures ideal self image as a hero and the reality of his ineptitude.

The fall is a symbol of romantic heroism, the tragic victim’s descent from a point of idealism. These figures are more pathetic than that, they lack the genuine aspiration to have reached a point from which to have fallen. They lack to ability to of had a dramatic narrative.

Instead they squirm and dance around stages which read as beds. They are performing some excessive act of mourning, a melodramatic cry for attention. They are vacuous figures who merely have the desire for the grand themes of figurative art and humanity.

As such the figures and the architecture search for tension and instability. Created by the two fold play on space they reveal the artificiality of painting.

Dismissing this reading they also seem to be about the ‘lovers discourse’ discussed by Barthes; the single figure excessively mourning the absent other.

Across five frames a figure is scene falling of a horse. The sequence is borrowed from a newspaper image of Zara Phillips. The dynamics of the image interested me, primarily, for the shift from a position of strong verticality, to one of total horizontality. The encoding of such coordinates within the History of Images interests me.

Beyond this the image was of interest due to the iconographical baggage that a figure on a Horse carries. The notion of the figures control of the horse being a metaphor of the control of the state fascinates me. Made around the time of the economic collapse, this images dynamic felt apt.

The figure on the right is a direct quote, restaged through performance, of Titian’s Actaeon (from Diana and Actaeon). Here he becomes the puppet master, revealing (and perhaps provoking) the tragedy which unfolds. He goes from victim to protagonist.

I have started to build up a sereis of character types. My painting’s are increasingly moving towards multi figured narratives. I still think the single male figure will continue to be the main focus on my work. The shift, theatrically speaking, will be from a monologue to a central character with a supporting cast.

I want to approach the build up of this cast with as an openness. The first batch of drawings have been from images borrowed and sources from newspapers. Often they are of a figure (or two0 looking outwards) It shifs back towards the notion of the returned gaze and the protagonist. Ideally I would like to catch something of Manet’s single figures, that reverie and detachment, that introspective melancholy. It is the denial of the communication offered that seems to be the striking feature of his figures.

These two lads above disturb ne slightly. Those plastic smiles, smug grins pulled across mask likfe faces. I like the thought that perhaps they are saying, ‘We know something you don’t know’.

‘A Lovers Discourse- a reply’

This is a reply to Roland Barthes ‘A Lover’s Discourse’. The original text sees Barthes writing about a single figure and the nature of their internal discourse caused by the ‘other’. The protagonist is sometimes present, sometimes absent, sometimes imagined.

The book is not organised in a linear narrative or in some form of philosophical hierarchy which moves clearly through varies levels of thought. Instead it is disjointed musings, displayed as fragments, on the condition in question. The fragments are organised alphabetically to provide a structure which does not turn the text into a singular doctrine.

The further I reached into the book the more I realised that numerous threads seem, to me anyway, to link into concerns in some of my paintings; these being predominantly desire and the single male figure and its relation to a female protagonist.

It feels important to try and make sense of the thoughts that emerged from the text. These vary from direct analyse of specific ideas to the development of an idea which derived as a tangent of reading the book but which has, perhaps, broken totally from the book as a source.

At this point I feel that the thoughts would be restricted if I either worked through them chronologically (as they came about within the book) or into some thematically (as this could limit the scope of them to what I think, in a preconceived manner, they are about.) So it seems logical to mirror Barthes. To take the fragments which have emerged as a deconstruction and reaction to the text and to reorder them alphabetically, under titles which loosely summarise the theme/content of the particular thought. Read the rest of this entry »

I have recently been do a series of drawing of figures who seem to be holding there own head, which is detached from there body. They begun as the product of a monoprint mistake, where I forgot to insert a neck (very neckligent…could not help the pun).

 The mistake sparked an interest, the figure made me laugh, so I started consciously pursuing these figures who seem to have inacted some kind of self decapitation. I wanted them to be a bit comic and ridiculous and called them ‘the boy whose head fell off’.

Today I made an alteration on figure in a new work which is based on Michelangelo’s David. David now appears to be holding his own head, as if having pulled it out of its socket. I suddenly reminded me of other images of David, the victor holding Goliaths head in his hand. It seemed interesting that David could perhaps holdin, victoriously, his own head in his hand. As if he was both David and Goliath, hero and villian, victim and victor, beast and man. It seemed to both deconstruct the history of the heroic male figure and play on trgic, but more importnalty, witty and comic ideas.

I have attached a photoshop mock up of an altered version of Carravagio’s David and Goliath. 

 I am currently starting on a series of drawings which look to develop a cast of character types, almost figures from some particular, currenlty unknown, race. They all seem to have pig noses. I think i might start working on a sereis of illustrations of this David like figure holding his one head, as if victorious. i like the idea of him also pushing the sword between hislegs, as if the threat of castration is present.