DANGEROUS, SMALL THINGS

La Mystère - “Quod me nutrit me destuit …”

VENUE - Rizzoli Bookstore (New York, New York)
DATE - August 14-25, 2005

PRECIS - A terrarium, stacks of small, dangerous books (on the subject of philosophical aesthetics, but of course) … all atop a type of catafalque (draped in black rayon) suggesting the tomb of Architecture Itself (the End and the Beginning …)  …

SOME BOOKS - http://www.geocities.com/ateliermp/philosophy_aesthetics.html

CATAFALQUE - “Catafalque, derived from the Italian word catafalco, literally means a scaffold or elevation, but in its strictly liturgical sense the word is employed to designate the cenotaph-like erection which is used at the exequial offices of the Church, and takes the place of the bier whenever the remains are not present. It is covered with a black cloth or pall, on which there is a cross either of white or some other colour (De Herdt, Praxis Sac. Lit., II, 328). The catafalque is usually placed immediately outside the sanctuary, and is the centre of the ceremonies of that part of the exequial office known as the absolution, receiving the same attention as the corpse would if present. Hence it is that lights burn around the catafalque during the function, and it is aspersed with holy water and incensed. During the absolution at the catafalque the cross-bearer should always stand between it and the door of the church, the celebrant or officiant being at the other end, between it and the sanctuary. When it is not possible for any reason to have a catafalque, its place may be supplied by a square piece of black cloth (pannus niger), which should be laid in front of the lowest step of the altar, and be sprinkled with holy water and incensed at the proper time by the officiant. Formerly the word was used to designate the bier or structure on which the corpse rested. No flowers should be used in connection with it, but it is allowable in the case of deceased prelates to mount their insignia to show the dignity, and in the case of nobles to display the family coat of arms, together with coronets, orders, and other insignia, to show the rank of the deceased. A very notable monument of this kind was that erected to the memory of Michelangelo by his brother artists on the occasion of his funeral in the Church of Santa Croce, Florence.” (Catholic Encyclopedia)

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03427a.htm
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/ncd01720.htm

DEPTH CHARGES - “At the start of the century certain geniuses were abstruse; now abstruseness stands in for genius. The substitution is indeed ingenious: if your emperor has no clothes, trick him out as a puzzle of a million pieces; who then would dare deny the presence of laces and jewels?” / “Transparency alone enables one to measure depth. Personally, I suffer from a severe and incurable ailment: respect for the reader. If one publishes, it is in order to be read, to be understood -- so transparency is the minimal courtesy. Deliberately to be opaque? Except in the case of a true genius, to whom no rules apply, it is at best paradoxical, and it is always an impertinence. And yet, to edit from a story the zigzags, hesitations, repetitions, inaccuracies of normal speech, to put back in apparent order hastily scribbled notes full of abbreviations, symbols -- not to mention illegible words -- to cut, patch, stitch it all together, isn’t this to run the risk of stifling elusive perceptions with a rigid formalism?” Vercors, Le Radeau de la Méduse [The Raft of Medusa], trans. Audrey Foote (New York: McCall, 1971), p. 5 …

“Almost Independence Day”
http://www.geocities.com/ateliermp/almost_independence_day.rtf
“The Anti-Anti-Theory Trilogy”
http://www.geocities.com/ateliermp/looking_awry3.html

THE TRIUMPHANT REAL - The triumphant triumvirate, Zizek/Zupancic/Badiou, circle the Real … And yet … What they fail to properly/fully address (undress), because they wish for it to remain ‘spectral’ (out of Necessity), is German Idealism re-written, though Hegel figures mightily, as the figure of this Spectral Thing (Spirit) … Finishing up Zizek’s retrospective Interrogating the Real (Verso, 2005), one can only hope that the forthcoming Universal Exception (Verso, 2005) will finish off the project … Zupancic’s Ethics of the Real (Verso, 2000) moves closer to the ‘Night’ (disclosed by Zizek as the phantasmatic Thing pursued in Idealism and opposed to the ‘Day’ of Enlightenment hegemony); thus, too, ‘scare quotes’ are absolutely necessary (to properly inscribe ‘Night’ and ‘Day’)… See (if you wish/dare) ‘Novalis’ … If it is Subjectivity Itself that is pre-figured always by diremptions, disclosures, unveilings, eloquent locutions (pace Lacan), it is also Subjectivity Itself that eludes the Signifier and its Author … Badiou remains the locus of this salutary fire (firing arrows of fire from the late-medieval fortress of thought known, nominally, as Modernity) … These arrows rain down, on fire (as fire), bringing (back) to mind Artaud … To this ‘return’ of the real Real all things aspire, as things-on-fire … Thus, too, this fire remains offstage, underwritten (in all senses/unsensed), unassimilable … “[F]ar from being opposed to historicity, the Real is its very ‘ahistorical’ ground, the a priori of historicity itself.” Slavoj Zizek, “The Real of Sexual Difference” (2002), Interrogating the Real (London: Verso, 2005), p. 350 …

“Immodernity Itself (Passim)”
http://www.geocities.com/ateliermp/immodernity_itself.rtf
“The Philosophy of the Real”
http://www.geocities.com/ateliermp/philosophy_of_the_real.rtf
“Quod me nutrit me destuit”
http://www2.localaccess.com/marlowe/portrait.htm

Gavin Keeney / Paula Hayes 
BATs (Books-As-Things)/GAPs (Gardens-As-Pretexts) - 2005