ART, BODY, AND  SOCIETY
By Vardan Azatyan

First I would like to bring to your attention two quotations, one from Hegel, and the other from Kant. Then I’ll try to joint them together, as their commonality reveals a very interesting point.

Hegel says that in art we deal not only with the pleasant and useful, but also with the manifestation of truth.

Kant finds that every aesthetical experience has a bodily nature.

If we try to collate Hegel with Kant (something Hegel would not agree to) we can infer a curious conclusion. Truth manifested in art has a bodily nature. But in order to form a thorough picture of the role of such an important notion in art as body, as well as to show its significance in the social and cultural life of the 21st century, we should look at how the concept of body emerges in contemporary culture and, in doing so, we have the chance to get to the core of David’s work.

The notion of a “body without organs” is an offspring of our century. Deleuze and Guattari warn us that in this context the body must be understood in the larger sense; it can be defined as “Socius”, as “the body of the world”; not to forget that this term was used for the first time by Antonin Artaud. As he put it: “Body is the body, it is the only one and it needs no organs”. But the origin of this term, however, had already been anticipated by Nietzsche in his principle of refusing one’s own body. The perception of disintegration, threatening Nietzsche’s own physiological body being projected on a social and ontological world-outlook, objectifies itself as “body-creation”, “body-aphoristic text”, and as a final point, body “living in principle” which, however, lives beyond the organic forms of human corporality. This Nietzscheian concept of body found its socio-political realization in the politics of German national-socialism. In this sense, it’s worth noting Wilhelm Reich’s work “Mass Psychology of Fascism” where he sharply criticizes Aldridge’s reporting, in which German soldiers were considered to be practical scientists who experimented constantly and developed a mathematical theory of murder. And on the other side of this mechanical body “living in principle” was the “therapeutic politics” of “weak bodies” with the “health spas” of gas chambers.

So the notion of “a body without organs” due to the politics adopted by totalitarian systems is introduced into man’s ideas, and at the same time, is derived from the schizoid split of one’s own body. As Laing put it, the schizoid subject is the one who loses the ability to sense the boundaries of his own body, and the feeling of the skin dies, without which it becomes impossible to have the feeling of an “I”. A schizoid subject, as Laing puts it, is a man without a skin. His eyes are perceptive gaps in a schizoid body into which one’s own body is crammed in order to make the world without man.

As we saw, the twofold and separating attitude towards the body becomes especially evident during our century due to the debates dealing with that subject.

For example, Adorno points out that love/hate towards the body adorn all modern culture. As something defeated and enslaved, the body again incurs mocking and insult, and at the same time, it becomes desirable, as something prohibited, substantiated and alienated. 

Nowadays, perhaps the best argument confirming the violence against and, at the same time, the love towards the body, is the behavior of the heroes of Internet porn sites towards the bodies of their partners and towards their own. Here, the body is reduced to a tool of the will and hence the whole sexual act becomes a sadistic struggle. This is nothing but the exploitation of the body.

Art is sensitive towards contradictions and conflicts, and contemporary art is especially sensitive. David works right in the sphere of this contradiction. In the modern world, the fact of the exploitation of the body turns into “CRISIS”. Here the sexual act takes place in a dump, in garbage, which, as can be supposed, is identified with the body, for in the screen we can see only the head of one of the partners; the body is hidden. And therefore the dump itself starts to play the role of his body and that of the partner’s, at the same time. And under these circumstances it’s natural that his face expresses pain and suffering, rather than pleasure and love.

When the body is reduced to garbage, it takes on the status of something digested on a bio-physiological level, and due to that, the issue is focused on the problem of digestibility. The problem of digestibility is the result of the tension between the body and society, and demonstrates that reality has become intolerable in the sense of being unacceptable (indigestible) to the body. And here we can see another of David’s works, “THE CALL OF ANCESTORS” where the necessity of regaining the lost identity of the body has arisen, and is carried out by means of eating, or in other words, by mechanical assimilation, led by the hopeless belief that if I digest it, it will become a part of me, and hence, will reincarnate me. This is nothing but an example of a primitive ritual. Therefore, while David’s works are endowed with a ceremonial nature, they emerge as a critique of civilization. For, isn’t it true that the division of the body and mind, as well as the idea that the body is a tool or weapon of performing the commandments of the soul, passes through all our civilization just like a red thread? And in this case there simply can’t be any talk with respect to the completeness of the body. Thus, as a result of this division, an enmity and intolerance arise (in a socio-political context) which manifest themselves best in such contemporary diseases as racial intolerance and xenophobia. So the color of the skin of other people is considered to be not an other’s but an enemy’s.

Thus, through the factor of the split of the body, socio-political events are introduced into David’s works, and they acquire an emphasized social-political nature. Evidence of this is David’s video-installation “DEAD DEMOCRACY”. Here we can see symbols of patriarchy which carry us to the Mesolithic era, announcing the birth of animal husbandry: fleece and feathers. In this context it is interesting to take a look at the status of men, of which we are reminded by the petrified and empty clothes; take notice that those are the clothes of both men and women, that is, it can be concluded that the patriarchal order is unfavorable for both sides. But can it be favorable for anyone? For the patriarch himself, perhaps. But here we can see him breathing heavily; he is anointing his body with some red liquid that reminds us of blood. There was a very similar ritual in Ancient Egypt. In this way Egyptians anoint at a dead body, hoping to revive it. Therefore, David’s work seems to be a hopeless attempt to revive the democratic values that are in agony. That is, the conviction of the body is testimony that civilization did not succeed.

Another example of saving the body from becoming a tool or an artificial thing is the video-installation “THE WORLD WITHOUT YOU”. If you remember, one of the heroes of the film “The Matrix” said that people are no longer being born; now they are just being grown. Adorno also described this process of the mechanization of the body very precisely. He says that nowadays men consider the body as a moving mechanism, and the skin is considered to be an upholstering put on the skeleton. People unconsciously measure each other with the eye of a coffin-maker, and they betray themselves when they call each other long, short and heavy.

Thus, the tumbling in mud (which is nothing but a symbol of a sexual act) is a manifestation of a desire to re-find the former identity of the body and in this case the body itself becomes the industrial product which David wants to merge with nature, to its previous harmonic state. The fact that body has become a product in our civilization, deprives the body of the ability to get sexual pleasure, and because of this, the world is bereft of a partner, that is to say, is bereft of YOU.

The fact of the viscosity of mud testifies that in this case reality, compared with the dump in “CRISIS”, has become more “digestible”, though not completely. And here the next step to the final “digestibility” is the video “DIGESTIBLE REALITY”. Here the world is already not without “YOU”. The hero is already not alone, and more than that, he is not only not alone, he is naked, surrounded by a group, in one place. And undoubtedly, this nakedness is a testimony of communication and sympathy. Due to this, this model of the family is not hierarchic, but testifies to of equality and tolerance, independent of age and gender, which Locke called “a state of nature”. Another accurate hint of the equality of rights is that all the heroes are sitting on the floor and there is not any dichotomy of “higher or lower” which is one of the most characteristic qualities of the patriarchal order. Not to forget that the vertical menhirs announced a final formation of the patriarchal order.

If we remember the conjunction of Kant and Hegel (that the truth manifested in art has a bodily nature) and from that point of view we consider the subject of this work, we will see that here reality acquires a state harmonious with the needs of body; that is, here reality becomes digestible, and this is because the truth manifests itself, which is nothing else but reciprocal equality and tolerance, which are democratic values. In general we can say that the needs of the body are taken into account only in a state founded on democratic values. This, in opposition to the work “DEAD DEMOCRACY”, we can call a “LIVING DEMOCRACY”.

Thus, David directs his gaze towards democratic values and equal rights, turning back from the motives of the old class order, i.e. inequality leading to the loneliness and isolation of the individual. In opposition to the processes of mastering and owning which in primeval orders were the monopoly of the dictator, mentioned above with respect to the work “CALL OF ANCESTORS”, here in the democratic order social welfare is obtained only when others also have equal rights to become owners.

Consequently, each one of David’s works is a unique link in the circular chain of the body/society problem, inseparable and supplementing one another. This chain starts with the tension originating from the factors mentioned above, i.e. from “CRISIS”, then the powerlessness to relieve this tension (“DEAD DEMOCRACY”, “CATASTROPHE OF INDEPENDENCE”) and, at the same time, the hopeless protest arising from that same powerlessness (“MONUMENT OF SOLIDARITY”, “GASTRITIS”), then the attempt to find the solution in the ceremonial orders of the past (“CALL OF ANCESTORS”, “THE WORLD WITHOUT YOU”), finally, and perhaps, contrarily, the suggestion a model for a solution based on democratic values: “DIGESTIBLE REALITY”.

Remember that the democratic system of national-political government arose with the rise of a city, in the Ancient Greek poleis. In this sense “DIGESTIBLE REALITY” appreciably differs from “CALL OF ANCESTORS”, for the power of the majority is officially acknowledged in the democratic order, contrary to the centralized power of a dictator or the equal rights of citizens, contrary to the unrestricted power of a dictator or the domination of law, contrary to the word of a dictator and that of the priest’s class, and finally, the electoral nature of governing class, contrary to the hereditary nature of tribal power. Though it must be mentioned that “CALL OF ANCESTORS” or the tribal order is the historical predecessor of “DIGESTIBLE REALITY” or that of the democratic order, both in David’s creative history, and in world history.

Therefore I don’t want to put any one of them above the others: they all are necessary elements of the creative process and search, which, in David’s case, have their own logic, which is aimed at the creation of a more tolerant, more humane and happier society. And we have seen that this logic revolves around one axis consisting of three phases:

1.         In David’s art the rise of social-political problems is considered to be the result of the violation of the needs of the body by culture.

2.         The only guarantee of building a civilized and humane society is the uncompromising criticism of all phenomena promoting that violation, and the settling of accounts with the needs of the body as a living and breathing organism.

3.         There is the attempt to suggest such a model of a free social order in which the body and society will be in harmony.

In order to illustrate the importance of this issue in the contemporary world I would like to conclude with words of Alexander Lowen:

Knowledge, strength and wealth are meaningless, if they take away good feeling and the welfare of the society. But they are able to do neither the one nor the other, if they ignore the affirmation of bodily expression and completeness. Therefore, I am sure everyone will agree with me, but many will vote against it, if I insist that our culture opposes what the body requires.

But it is worth fighting for health and happiness, and in this case art has its unique and very important role.

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WRITING

Are There Visible Things Impossible to Show? by Eva Khachatryan

ART, BODY, AND SOCIETY By Vardan Azatyan

Body as a Site of Social Critique:
Death and Sacrifice in David Kareyan’s Videos by Angela Harutyunyan

New Locality by David Kareyan