Reclamations/Ruins on the photographic surface : Volatile Inscriptions around the Body

The Photographic Image/Volatile Bodies/Architectural Ruins

Helena Eflerova

Interior Spaces, Waverley Abbey.

The future must no longer be determined by the past. I do not deny that the effects of the past are still with us. But I refuse to strengthen them by repeating them, to confer upon them an irremovability the equivalent of destiny, to confuse the biological and the cultural. Anticipation is imperative. 

Helene Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1980:145)

The Language Of Women

Volatile Bodies/Sexed Bodies : Elizabeth Grosz

1  have  attempted  to  read  the  male  discourses  dealt  with  here  as  discourses for  and  about  men,  discourses  which  have  ignored  or  misunderstood  the  radical implications  of  insisting  on  a  recognition  of  sexual  specificity,  discourses  which have  presented  their  claims—radical  as  these  might  be—without  any  understand­ ing of their relevance to or usefulness for women’s self-representations. I have not attempted  to  give  an  alternative  account,  one  which  provides  materials  directly useful  for  women’s  self-representation.  To  do  so  would  involve  knowing  in  ad­vance,  preempting,  the  developments  in  women’s  self-understandings  which  are now  in  the  process  of  being  formulated  regarding  what  the  best  terms  are  for representing  women  as  intellectual,  social,  moral,  and  sexual  agents.  It  would involve  producing  new  discourses  and  knowledges,  new  modes  of  art  and  new forms  of  representational  practice  outside  of  the  patriarchal  frameworks  which have  thus  far  ensured  the  impossibility  of  women’s  autonomous  self-representa­tions,  thus  being  temporally  outside  or  beyond  itself.  No  one  yet  knows  what  the conditions are for developing knowledges, representations, models, programs, which provide women   with  nonpatriarchal  terms  for  representing  themselves  and the world from women’s interests and points of view. This book has been a pre­liminary  exploration  of  some  of  the  (patriarchal)  texts  which  feminists  may  find useful  in  extricating  the  body  from  the  mire  of  biologism  in  which  it  has  been entrenched.  But  the  terms  by  which  feminists  can  move  on  from  there,  can  su­persede  their  patriarchal  forebears,  are  not  dear  to  me.  But  perhaps  the  frame­ work  I  have  been  trying  to  use  in  this  book—a  framework  which  acknowledges both  the  psychical  or  interior  dimensions  of  subjectivity  and  the  surface  corporeal exposures of the subject to social inscription and training; a model which resists, as much  as possible,  both  dualism and  monism; a model which  insists on  (at least) two surfaces which cannot be collapsed into one and which do not always harmoniously  blend  with  and  support each  other; a model where the join,  the interaction of the two surfaces, is always a question of power; a model that may 

be represented  by  the geometrical form of the Mobius strip’s two-dimensional torsion in three-dimensional space—will nevertheless be of some use if feminists wish to avoid the impasses of traditional theorizing about the body.

Patti Smith

Cartwheels

Come my one, look at the world Bird beast butterfly
Girls sing notes of heaven Birds lift them up to the sky

Spring is departing Spring is departing

Her thoughts are darting like a rabbit Like a rabbit 'cross the moon
Shines of light over your hair As boys croon

Pretty in pink It makes me wonder
What could ever bring you down I see tears falling
From those eyes of brown

Hearing a voice, you turn your head You vanish into the mist
Of your thoughts And I
Want to grasp What brings you down
Open up those eyes of brown

The world is changing Your heart is growing

Hearing a voice you turn your head Girls turn by ones, by twos
Notes pour bad and tender Eradicate your blues

The good world The good world
Come my one, look around you Bird, beast, butterfly
Girls sing…