Page 28 - Studio International - November 1974

(Top) Jasper Johns Broken Target, 1958 Pencil, is a form of consciousness. The traces of a basic construct of an artwork. Within such an
39.4 x 38.1 cm
(Bottom) Giacommetti Head of a Woman 1946; words the corrections of which function as artwork, there can be specific images of
Crayon, 19 1/2 x 13 3/4 in. errors corrected, as differences per se silence, as well. One such image is Beckett's use
worked upon the spoken word-object. It can of the rocking-chair, in which Murphy sits
be an object, a verbal object, when felt as a obsessively, self-consciously, hysterically.
totality structured in its creation and Rocking as such is an image of silence because
structuring in its dialectic interaction with a of the rhythm it produces, on a physical/material
listener. It takes on a wholeness, objectness, level. This repetitive rythm, one of ultimate
after the fact of its having been uttered. Thus a persistent monotony (in spite of speed-
monologue like that of Mouth in Beckett's play variance) may also connect to an image of a
Not I. The internal verbal repetitions and person thinking. Rocking and thinking
replications, and the monotone persistence and (external silence) or rocking and non-thinking
extreme speed approaching indecipherability, (internal silence), both have as prerequisite a
create the structure in time, and force silence, a void. If the head is filled with words,
the dialectic on the viewer. The monologue as a with (self-) conscious attempts at clarification,
form is perfectly situated in theatre and in this internal absence (of silence) forges the
writing for its structural concerns, because of external situation, the fact, of silence. In John
the basic singular unit, the speaker (or thinker). Blake's film, Arrest (1970) a man is rocking
All variation, all expressions, all descriptive back and forth for ten minutes, his head
elements are immediately seen in the context of enters frame right, leaves frame left, re-enters
one person, an 'I', trying to come to grips with frame left, etc. The close-up of the head
(his/her) verbalizing consciousness, the sense of entering and leaving the frame (in profile) is at
attempting to define what is. This of course has such speed that the image itself is less strong
nothing to do with a representation of a mythical than each successive after-image (through the
subject. The monologue is a structure, a device 'persistence of vision' created by the makeup of
and a truth. (Karl Valentin, the Bavarian the human eye). We attempt to arrest the
comic/actor/writer, a great influence on Brecht, image; the image is of a self; the image is one of
was an incredible artist of the monologue form, silence. Such a work exists in the same pared-
in precisely such a vein. As his work is all in down aesthetic as Beckett's.
Bavarian dialect, it is fairly inaccessible, though Another image of silence is blindness.
many records, films and written scripts exist. Perhaps the lacking of one sense makes us
Beckett saw him in the late 30s 'in a shabby intuit the absence of another. Blindness and
cafe theatre outside Munich evil days for speechlessness. Thus silence. Or perhaps the
him I was very moved'. [26] In 1922, reason that blindness conjures up silence is
Brecht wrote the filmscript, Mysterien Eines because when confronted with it, speech
Frizeursa/ons for him). Another example of such becomes self-conscious, inhibited, approaching
a concept of monologue is the Pope-Ondine. silence in the face of such a fact. Beckett's
sequence of Warhol's Chelsea Girls, especially Hamm in Endgame is blind. Pozzo is, in Godot.
the last half hour of the film, and Ingrid's 'Man cannot escape the external situation. But
he can refuse to play blindman's bluff'. [28]
eggs monologue in Bikeboy (1968) [27]. The
perfectly repeatable anyway, and they are food monologue in Beckett's Watt bears (Jan Kott, King Lear or Endgame). Jasper
different in as much as they are human comparison. Bruce Nauman's conceptual work Johns's Target with Four Faces (1955) has
attempts to repeat either an act or an in-action does also: a concrete block in which (so the four faces placed so one sees the bottom of
(frozen movement) while time (duration) accompanying note tells us) a tape recorder with each nose, and the mouth, no eyes. In Beckett's
continues. This is essentially a different a loop of a scream is constantly playing. We see Come and Go (1967) the three women wear
aesthetic device from the film-loop, which is an the concrete block, and the electric cord widebrimmed hats, under lights so placed that
actual mechanistic repeat of a same length of emanating from it, plugged into the wall socket. one sees only the nose and mouth, not the eyes,
footage (though of course even here there is We hear nothing. A last aspect: obsessive of each woman. Beckett's Hamm, in addition to
only virtual, never actual, repetition, which like repetition is not an image of mental being blind, wears black sun-glasses, as does
silence is inexistent in a pure form). Examples claustrophobia, it is it. Obsessive repetition Warhol's superstar Ondine in Chelsea Girls
are Léger's Women Climbing Stairs sequence comes out of the pain of a consciousness (when he opens up he takes them off), not to
from Ballet Mechanique (1924), Bruce trying to grasp what is, but out of that as well mention Warhol himself, who remains in
Conner's film Report (1964), the last scene comes (can come) a hilarity (Nauman's piece silence as much as does Samuel Beckett,
from Bresson's Mouchette, in which the loop is excepted) as in no other verbal form. especially in relation to any interpretation of
one of forward and reverse time repetition Naturally there is no little sadism involved in his work or his self. In Giacometti's sculptures,
(ripples of water in dispersion, conversion, such humour. we see figures whose eyes are muted parts of
), as well as sections of
dispersion the clay of the head, not separated as objects,
Vertov's and early Eisenstein's works. 5. not delineated, and the continuence of eyes
(Man with a Movie Camera, Enthusiasm, Strike.) To end this very brief essay, I would like to with face as a whole makes for an image of a
C) The monologue: This device follows from clarify the usages of silence in such art. Warhol, person who can not see, or rather, one who
the function of the Repeat to a degree, as Beckett, certain structural film-makers, etc., all stares so monotonously, so directly, so
obsessive repetition in an artwork with a deal with the aesthetic device of silence to an persistently, that nothing specific can take on
verbal base tends to have, as the element to be extreme degree. The matter becomes complex, importance in relation to it. The stare is at
repeated, words. Such continuance of the word as silence can be used for its duration in the void. It is a blindman's stare, or a blind-
flow is defined as a monologue; obsessive verbal internal formal compositional opposition to woman's. Erasures (which paradoxically
repetition by constantly re-attempting sound, as in much film and theatre, but may retrieve the skeletal structure) in Giacometti's
to define reality 'repeats' itself. A monologue also be used radically as a wholeness of form, as drawings are as much processes of essential