Introduction
In general, I seem to have grandiose illusions as to my existence. Growing
up I was told that I was going to be famous. I don't remember ever telling
anyone that I thought that they would be famous, so I never quite understood
how it was that people thought that I was going to be, especially considering
the fact that I had very little aspiration for the program of fame itself.
Nevertheless, when someone tells you this you can't help but question how
and what would make one famous. I began to concoct various scenarios from
which my fame would mount itself. I decided that I did not want fleeting fame,
but more lasting and enduring fame.
But how do you become famous?
Was I going to be noble and try to make some sort of medical
advancement, or scientific achievement? It was a possibility, but it's not
the type of fame that's well known throughout the global community, and hell-I'm
no Einstein. Would I become a great athlete? That was out of the question-I
am not what would be described as athletic by any definition of the word.
I could be a famous author, or an actor or musician-these seemed most logical
so I began my work.
At 10, I began writing my autobiography. It was almost two and
a half pages. I decided that I would wait a while before attempting it again,
and there went my career as an author. I studied music for 15 years, and realized
that it just wasn't that much fun, and that Morrissey was so much more profound
than Bach. I pretty much just quit one day. Tried acting, in high school and
college, and I realized that life is acting, and that putting acting into
practice was what acting truly was.
Therefore, I became an artist.
There is a Time and a Place
for Everything:
A Preface to Modulus [1]
When I was eighteen months old, someone took my picture in front of a historical
monument. To be more specific, the photo was of my cousin holding me wrapped
in an afghan, across the street from the White House, standing under a tree
and in front of a fence. I have no memory of the event. Nevertheless, I have
a photographic record of its occurrence.
This phenomenon of recollection through the image and not the
primary occurrence is well documented and researched by many academics in
a variety of fields. They collectively call it post-memory. It is as
if the addition of "post" to anything demands it to be taken seriously in
our time. How is memory not "post"? Memory is an action of recovery. Whether
we have constructed that memory or it exists as a document, all memory has
occurred; it is an ephemeral record-ex post facto.
Because we conflate events and images in our synapses, we have
to explain this as a phenomenon of our historical time. Why not explain it
as a condition of our technologic post-photographic time? The transcendence
of the image is a result of its likeness and its capacity as a recording device.
Isn't this a logical predicament?
When I woke up this morning I did what I have done most mornings
of my life; peed, ate, washed, and dressed. There is no specific order, other
than the initial peeing, to the morning's events. I have no photographic record
of these daily events, I have no written document, and I have no memory other
than the collection of nearly thirty years of these simple events that prepare
me for each day.
For instance, it's nearly noon now and I have not competed these
tasks. In general, when I am writing I go right into it without thinking about
the fact that I haven't brushed my teeth yet. It's inconsequential to my typing,
my thoughts. Yet, tomorrow I will have no specific recollection to the fact
that I hadn't yet brushed my teeth at 11:08 a.m. today. However, I will be
able to say tomorrow that I brushed my teeth today-and every other day for
that matter, because I do that. I suppose that it's an ontological
awareness of self, rather than a memory action. This understanding operates
at a level of unawareness-I am not able to nor do I ever attempt to
recollect the event of brushing my teeth on February 2nd 1982.
Nevertheless, I know that I brushed my teeth that day.
Maybe tomorrow I won't brush my teeth. Maybe I will make a photograph
of this event, that way I will remember its anomalous existence.
Do the thoughts of artists and philosophers have very much impact
on our lives? I know they think that they do. Historically we see definite
paths that lead us to where we are-but historians and philosophers drew those
paths. Read any post-colonial or feminist text and they will immediately dispel
those paths. The paths that were not "drawn" by these thinkers are the paths
that interest me. I am just one person, but many paths lead to me. I am interested
in creating a language that reflects these paths. I am curious to see that
in 100 years from now what history really looks like. How can we tell global
history from a single perspective anymore? WE CAN'T! (I love to answer my
own rhetorical questions). It's impossible to think that in the year 2084,
we will view history with the same outlook that we have today. And, it is
unlikely that anything significant will have precedence over the insignificant.
For example-my birth will not be celebrated, nor will the birth of any presidents
or visionaries. For example-we have already compounded the holiday "President's
Day" rather than celebrating both Washington and Lincoln's birthdays. This
was done so that we could have Martin Luther King Day. A reasonable compromise
to acknowledge legendary achievements in the African American Community; but
why just a single person I ask. Now we have black history month, and women's
history month. Are we going to have presidential history month soon?
Isn't this too specific? Do we have these demarcated months because every
other month is white male month? How in the next century and beyond are we
going to continue to classify what and who is important enough to remember?
Why not let us decide for ourselves, and have a "Historical Remembrance
Day?" Kids could come to school, dressed in costume, and act out their favorite
historical figures. Whether it be Julius Caesar, Mary Queen of Scots,
Kant, Oscar Wilde, Neil Armstrong, Rosa Parks, John Hinckley Jr., Marilyn
Monroe, Chairman Mao or their great-grandmother-you would decide who you want
to celebrate, who made an impact on you and your perceptions of historical
importance. Why let someone else make a decision about who is important and
who isn't?
Up until now, we tended to view history as a straight line with
many parallel tangents. What if there is no longer a singular history, but
rather many histories crossing and doubling back to create individual ones?
What if we were all to design our own history by choosing the appropriate
events that would map our progress: as a race, as a religion, as a sex, etc.
Rather than place ourselves in a period, we are content to be categorically
present-caught in a limbo between past and future, unaware that the actions
that we take now create the epicenter of centuries of aftershocks in which
what we have done are still felt. We can create legends. What would
happen if the telephone wires were crossed along the way, and the record of
these shock waves no longer existed? We no longer accept history as a pure
record-but rather an account close to the source. It's at best secondary and
always an interpretation. What if the resulting form of "history" in a thousand
years is a record encoded with layers of selective compound histories? What
would the artifacts from this heterogeneous jumble look like, and what would
they signify about this perpetual present that we are placed in right now?
I believe that I am creating one of these artifacts right now.but why?
Why would I embark on a project that seems both strange and useless?
What is the cause for such examination and why would I take more than a year
out of my life to try to bring these strange symbols into a new language that
is completely contrived? It's as though I am creating a game for only myself
to play-why make jargon when it already exists independent of myself?
The implications and questions that arise from creating artifacts,
such as this book, are what become interesting. In this game, I have created
a very specific language by using vernacular object to create a coded language,
both visual and aural. The code is simple but perhaps it is only recognizable
by me. With this book, you get a taste of what I am creating. Maybe it will
act as a secret decoder ring and open up my little world of post-historical
writing and art making.
I have had a set daguerreotypes made, which in the realm of photography
are both coveted and highly impractical. No one has really made daguerreotypes
since the 1860's and why would they? They are toxic and unpredictable, unstable,
and require very long exposures. However, they have what's missing from photography
and art today. It's the same thing that is missing from life-aura.
In order to categorize these objects as having "aura" we must
first consider the nature and the characteristics of this earliest form of
the modern photograph, with regard to its size, singularity, and antiquity.
The distinctiveness of daguerreotypes connotes both a historical time as well
as preciousness-two elements that I am duty-bound to exploit. The size and
decorative quality of a daguerreotype makes it fundamentally a precious object;
it is an image that fits into the palm of your hand. Ornamentations such as
its metal filigree encasement and the plush velvet interior serve as both
a reminder of the parlor where it may have been made as well as functioning
to protect the fragile image from any harm. It is an object of both adornment
and adoration. The daguerreotype represents the beginnings of photographic
media. The original daguerreotypes are emblematic of the origin of capturing
and preserving an image, particularly capturing one's own portrait. There
is an implicit notion of immortality associated with the daguerreotype.
Another characteristic of the daguerreotype that is inborn is
the singularity of the process. There is no duplicating a daguerreotype. By
the nature of the process itself, each photograph is a unique object in and
of itself. I feel as though the idea of a cherished object is something that
we no longer have in this day and age. Other than antiques, historical artifacts
and art, and family histories, we no longer covet nor construct cherishable
objects. Nothing is unique. The closest our society comes to cherishing something
is collecting, and most objects collected are mass-produced-toothbrushes,
toasters, teacups, pencils-just like the images in my daguerreotypes.
In Benjaminian terms, the loss of "aura" to the art object is
a direct result of multiplicity. The premise of "aura" is both inherently
intriguing and much debated. I will argue that although made through mechanical
process, the daguerreotype has a sense of "aura". The aforementioned nature
of the process of creating a daguerreotype (as irreproducible and singular)
and the product (as cherishable, unique and desired) holds distinct qualities
that are missing from object production today whether it be a snapshot or
a toaster.
This in many ways becomes the basis of the project itself; the
juxtaposition of technology (or the results thereof) and its own history and
theory, with relationship to art. The manifestations being: something precious
that is a commodity; a mass produced object imaged by way of an authentic
antiquated process. The contradiction/counter-contradiction of the masses
versus the individual, paired against its own history is the very embodiment
of this work, and of this book.
