Things get even more complicated when you understand that the white color is an umbrella term for a variety of tones. Many-many-many tones of white. Ghost white, smoke white, snow white, egg white, ivory white, seashell white, beige, cream ,bone white... Geshrey Meshuga!
But screw that. As Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in his study "Imagination": "I look at this white sheet of
paper lying in my desk". That's a nice start for this article. Stark realization of the commencement.
***
French poet Stephane Mallarme had very special relationship with white sheet of paper. In his letter to
Henri Cazalis he once wrote: "...the terror of sheet of white paper, ... seems to demand lines of poetry so long dreamed of, and
which will contain merely a few lines... that terror keeps you away from a sacrilege."
Mallarme was fully aware of his sheer inability to fully grasp and express his vision, to make it stand against the
Leviathan that is white sheet paper. But this terror, sense of sterility upon starting to work wasn't the thing that could really stop him.
It was merely a holding factor, means to switch gears and unleash the forces from the parts unknown. Mallarme wanted to channel from beyond
and this terror was his point of entry. As Virginia La Charite wrote in her study of "Un Coup de des": "Space is the
abstract which cannot be explained, the pure which cannot be experienced, the authentic which cannot be derived: it is formless, not
enclosed ...sterile, unlimited, original and complete within itself." Mallarme considered white spaces to be integral parts of
the poem - water around the continents, something that makes the form more apparent.
But what's so special about glaring whiteness of paper? For Maurice Blanchot it was both moment of terror and return to
reason. As he wrote: "Dread challenges all the realities of reason, its methods, its possibilities, its very capacity
to exist, its ends, and yet dread forces reason to be there; it summons it to be reason as perfectly as it can; dread itself is only
possible because there continues to exist in all its power the faculty that dread renders impossible, that it annihilates."
This passage is best illustrated by Mallarme's lines: "Everything will be hesitation, disposition of parts, / their
alternations and relationships - all this / contributing to the rhythmic totality, which is the / very silence of the poem, in its blank
spaces, as that / silence is translated by each structural element in its /own way."
***
In 1950 Jean Cocteau released his film "Orpheus". In it at some point its titular
character was given a book titled "Nudisme". It contained only blank pages. It may or may not be perceived as a sly spin
on the term "blank verse". But it is also a slick illustration of one particular concept by Richard Willheim.
In his article "Minimal Art" Richard Wollheim interpreted Mallarme's anxiety in a very
different way: "...we might ask, why could not Mallarme, after an interval of time, have simply got up from his chair and produced the
blank sheet of paper as the poem that he sat down to write? Indeed, in support of this, could one imagine anything that was more expressive
of, or would be held to exhibit more precisely the poet's feelings of inner devastation than the virginal paper?"
Wollheim puts it the way that the question itself is far more interesting than any possible answer.
Sometimes the easy way makes the most sense.
For me - empty sheet of paper is an incredible space for two things to unroll - pareidolia and apophenia. You look at the
sheet and start to perceive some sorts of familiar patterns out of basically nothing and you start to make up some sense around it. It
might be not exactly real or real, but not exactly there. Something goes on. It takes time and by the moment you're done you're so engaged
in the process you're positively confused. Even somewhat lost. You can play with empty sheet of paper you can not look at it. And then look
at it. No matter how closely you examine it, no matter how you try to take it apart, no matter how you break it down - sheet of paper
remains rock solid as a concept in your mind. Gloating void of doom.
There are many blank, invisible works of art that lean hard on the context they're put in. That makes them an easy target
for glorious misinterpretations, which itself turns into a separate derivative works of art. Moebius strip of invisible art.
For example - Xerox Book. In 1968 Australian conceptual artist Ian Burn produced
"Xerox Book" - an art object which contained a sheet of paper, it's photocopy and the photocopies of its subsequent
photocopies.
It is fascinating to see how surface of the paper transforms, minor bit and pieces appear. Its whiteness deforms, patterns
become very different - it is still that piece of paper - but with the history of its reproduction. One left to wonder how many times you
need to perform such operation in order to turn into a complete blackness.
The other interesting use of blankness was by Fred Forest. In 1972 as part of his Space
Media project he bought a square space in January 12 edition of the daily newspaper Le Monde. It contained blank 150cm2 square.
Forest asked readers to fill this square with anything they want. It added interactive element to the newspaper, but as it is - it's not
only a space to fill but a space to stop and think. Place to let your mind breathe a bit and go on.
***
I don't really know why I'm so attracted to white empty spaces. Maybe because I was listening to "Show must go on" too much.
Or something else. Empty spaces feel cutoff to me - there's always a second half missing. Talking in "pink floyd the wall" terms -
one must know that instead of "Empty spaces" there must be "What shall we do now?".
The possibility of variable conclusion makes me tick and click. What comes next is something known as "lap-lap-lap-flap and
the foul sigh coming from the mouth with cloud" - something that clobbers the naught nil and leaves an echo that plays better in your
memory than it was for real.
What I was talking about? ...no! I was procrastinating a bit before a big rumble.
Немає коментарів:
Дописати коментар