Quick To Drain

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Until It Stops Burning

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The head is the only part of the body that seems complete.  It contains the brain, the eyes, the ears, and the mouth – ostensibly everything needed for communication, if not for existence.  Talking heads are a set piece of contemporary media culture. 

By eliminating the eyes, one eliminates the gaze.  The gaze is a way of choosing or selecting.  If the head has no eyes it has no choice. Agency without choice is the situation of the traumatized subject, doomed to repeat circumstances or actions that precede or proceed the traumatic event as a way of protecting the psyche of the subject.

Narrative in art is a function of placement and sequence.  In trauma, sequence does not advance.  The repetition is the interruption of the sequence.   In fact, time stops because of trauma. 

Painting conventions support a reading from left to right.  In Leonardo’s Annunciation, for example, the angel enters from the left, facing the right.  We follow his gaze to the Virgin, seated right facing left.  The divine looks to the human.  God comes to earth. The movement of the viewer’s gaze creates the action of the picture.

If the figure facing left is moving toward the future and the completion of narrative, the figure facing right is the opposite.  It faces the past, regression, and a lack of completion. This lack, combined with the activity and sound, create the anxiety of castration.  At the same time the unending motion indicates a jouissance that is obscene and excessive.  It is indicative of the pleasure of the traumatized subject. The machine of the body is turned back on itself and on time in a way that does not allow narrative, closure or advancement.  Seen in this way, time stops, and traumatic activity provides the only pleasure in a closed system.  

 

Location Burns

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