Novel S.C Issue

8/2/2019 Novel S.C Issue

1/17

NOVEL

TIME


2/17

1 Barry MacGregor Johnston, Psychic Curfew

2 Emily Wardill, The Diamond (Descartes Daughter)

7 Mark Leckey,Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore

8 Charles Atlas, Blue Studio: Five Segments

10 Josef Strau, What Should One Do

15 Charles Atlas, Blue Studio: Five Segments

16 Ed Atkins, Defiant Delight: The Freedom of the Dilettante

Barry MacGregor JohnstonPsychic Curfew (installation view at Orange County Museum of Art,Orange County, CA), 2010Mixed media installation, dimensions variableCourtesy of the artist and Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles

Mark LeckeyFiorucci Made Me Hardcore (video still), 1999Video, color, sound, 15 minutesCourtesy of the artist, Gavin Browns enterprise, New York;Galerie Daniel Bucholz, Cologne; and Cabinet Gallery, London 2011 Mark Leckey

Charles Atlas and Merce CunninghamBlue Studio: Five Segments (video stills), 197576Video, color, sound, 15:38 minutesCourtesy of Charles Atlas and Vilma Gold, London


3/17

And then, because I shotmy film on film it became anobject in the space just asthe diamond is an object inthe space.

My film became a diamond.

And I wondered too, ifthe diamond might becomea mouth--refracting wordsas a crystal would refractlight, off in differentdirections and separatedinto many colours.

DESCARTES DAUGHTER SAYSOrangePuceAcid yellow

ScarletGreenRedYellowRedLilacBlueTurquoiseVioletRedMagentaAnd turquoise

Pale greenAmberMaroon

All in the dark

I SAYOr perhaps the words them-selves would scatter.

DESCARTES DAUGHTER SAYSOpposite you dont have topayPyramusWhat do we wantIve seen a lot look likeHimselfIn de brandingAuthors claimedRolls deepDeep toughie RikoTop rankingCardigans from days gone3tbps for grillingBecause he can jigFollowing our conversationThe girl was beginning toenjoy itBut his paralysisLapsed devotees.

MonTuesWedThursFriSatSteven

I SAYBut who would speak thesewords? Not Descartes sec-ond daughter who would

only, if able to speakat all, only repeat pre-recorded phrases that werechosen to sound like some-ones idea of a littlegirl:

3

THE DIAMOND(DESCARTES DAUGHTER)Script

This is a stand in forFrancine, DescartesDaughter, who never washedup on the shores of Sweden.She is a twelve-year-oldgirl playing a Nintendo Wiiunder a strobe light anddressed in a home-made ver-sion of the costume thattienne-Jules Marey dressedhis subjects when conduct-ing Chromophotography.

I ASK HER

Do you remember a scenefrom a film where there is adiamond in a room protectedby lasers?

I SAYI remember watching a filmwith this scene when I wasyour age. There is a dia-mond in a room protected bylasers which criss-crossthe darkness. The thief

has to dodge these lasersbecause if he breaks theirbeam, he will set off analarm and be caught. Thethief would then lower arobot hand through to graba hold of the jewel. Therobot hand was steadierthan his hand.

I remember the scene but donot remember the film.I asked other peopleif they did. I asked myfriends, my family, I askedin the film shop near myhome. I even asked Yahoo. Iwas told to look at:

Mission Impossible, I + IIOceans Eleven and OceansTwelveThe Thomas Crown AffairEntrapmentThe Pink PantherThe ThiefThe Man with the Golden GunDiamonds are ForeverMacGyver

None of these films had thescene as I remembered it,so I decided to remake itmyself. Only, this scenewould be made in such a waythat the people present onset would be constructingrather than attempting toavoid the security systemprotecting the jewel.

There would be a diamond in

the centre of a room whichwas spot-lit.

A single laser beam wouldcross the space.

It was like the room that Icould remember from the filmthat I could not find.

2


4/17

People had become machinesbut machines were bet-ter because they were morereliable.

(PAUSE)

tienne-Jules Marey andhis breaking down of peopleinto frames, still images,allowed that human movementbe analysed.In the science of indus-trial management his methodof decomposition and hissubject, human motion, wereused in America to controlthe production and effi-ciency of the labor force.

Descartes Daughters faceis blown up to 19ft across.Her handwriting is producedby a computer but stylisedto look as though it werehand written with a faintblue fountain pen.And her sex is fantasticaland hairless.She is a Readymaid speltM-A-I-D.Her technological make-up

would have worked just aswell if it were housed ina flat board but she hasbeen formed into the shapeof a human being who resem-bles an attentive 15-year-old girl.

He felt that this would

be the last time he wouldtravel. The philosopherRene Descartes had beensummons by Queen Christinaof Sweden, who wanted toknow his views on love,hatred and the passionsof the soul. He had beenin communication with theQueen for some time but didnot want to be part of hercourt. He felt, he said,that thoughts as well aswater would freeze over inSweden.

But Christinas wish washis command. Filled withforeboding, he packed hisbags, taking all of his

manuscripts with him.

Descartes Daughter,Francine, had died atthe age of five of scarletfever. He told a friendthat her death was thegreatest sorrow of hislife.

However, he was travel-ling, he told his compan-

ions, with his youngerdaughter Francine; but thesailors had never seen herand, thinking that thiswas strange, they decidedto seek her out one dayin the midst of a storm.Everything was out of placethey could find neither the

5

DESCARTES DAUGHTER SAYSI would like a sweetHello, my name isFrancine

I SAYOr perhaps she would speakin logic experiments thatresembled the format ofLaurence Weiners famousDeclaration of Intent(1968):

(1) The artist mayconstruct thepiece.

(2) The piece may befabricated.

(3) The piece may notbe built.

Perhaps Descartes Daughterwas Conceptual ArtistA Conceptual Artist

And would speak in the for-mat of logic experiments:

An Ant is able to carrymuch more than its bodyweight

Preoccupation with weight

loss has been proven byscientists to make a personless intelligent

Intelligence is an unquan-tifiable quality

Therefore, an ant carry-ing a person who is on a

diet is of indeterminateintelligence

Warhol claimed not to nothave a self

Oprah Winfrey says thatyou have to love yourselfin order to be loved

No-one loved Warhol

A persons image of theirown life is often very dif-ferent from the reality

A picture is not adescription with words

Therefore, words.

Unfortunately, the answerto the riddle was an image.But that image was remem-bered to be different fromthe way it had originallyexisted.

Descartes Daughter spokein these logic experimentswhich were rational to thepoint of being irrational.

The whole world wasDescartes Daughter, washedup and stunted. Performingactions that were thoughtup with a machine in mind.Answering the same ques-tions over and over again.Repeating actions with miniconclusions.

4


5/17

philosopher nor the girl.

Overcome with curiosity

they went into Descartes

quarters. There was no one

there but on leaving the

room they stopped in front

of a mysterious box. As

soon as they opened it they

jumped back in shock.

Inside the box was a doll,

a living doll, that moved

just like a little girl.

Descartes had constructed

the doll himself out of

clockwork and metal. It

was indeed his progeny but

not the one that the sail-

ors imagined. Francine was

a machine. When the ships

Captain was shown themachine he was convinced

that it was some instrument

of dark magic--responsible

for the bad weather that

had hampered their journey.

Descartes daughter was

thrown overboard.

I expected the thief to

be a man; perhaps it was

a girl. I had only seen a

robotic hand after all,steadier than a human hand.

6


6/17


7/17

searched all parts for the cigarette, but was aston-ished by the hidden language of all these half doneobjects, so much, that they felt like almost speak-ing to me as good art I guess should do, as I movedaround in the deserted production sphere of anotherartist. There was one instrument like a complicatedsaw or metal cutter, looking like a precision instru-ment, but then there was one piece particularly, anold red brick on the floor, but it was bound by someblack thick ribbon, leather like and the ribbon, wasscattered in a weird direction on the floor as if it wasa dogs leash. It was not just meaningful in a sexyway, it was like really meaningful in an existentialway, like saying everything has to be bound to some-thing to make any sense.

The day before I was at a fashion shop and when Ileft the changing room all three people in the shop,the owner, the daughter of the owner and the artiststood there and looked at me, as if their tools fell offtheir hands. They stood like specially positionedchess figures and the feeling touched me as if I was a

chess figure too and so I made one more step out intothe room, and I felt like a chess figure moving thefirst time out into the open field and being suddenlytrapped in the gaze of three much stronger figures.It was a gothic fashion shop and while waiting andlooking around without touching first I had decidedto choose myself, not just waiting, and I chose twothings. One was a long skirt. It was made of strongheavy pinstripe velvet and had two sweet little buck-les, one on each side and a long zipper on the back.And now wearing it, I just felt really strange in themiddle of the shop so much squeezed and exposed in

between everybody.

Even trying to describe the situation I am in on thatday of quick writing it does not help to solve the mys-tery to recover a text, the text just written a few daysago and which is in fact still in the human memoryalmost word by word. So let me go ahead, with whatI would write instead. What happened after the fash-ion shop visit and its embarrassing moment betweenthe shelves in front of the gothic changing room.

11WHAT SHOULD ONE DO

What real feeling of freedom. Now finally I seem tobe allowed officially to write real stupid, as I alwayswanted to and as I was sometimes even told to do.No big expectations now. Like being an artist. Isntit one of the earliest learnings while slowly learn-ing about the difficulties to become a real profes-sional artist, that your work needs at least a littleinjection of stupid in order to make it a good work, inorder that it can achieve a certain amount of com-munication value. Like just look at the wall first andthen describe its lines of broken color for instance.Which wall is it and write where it is. Be stupid. Isntit good for the text and for the reader if it is stupid?Yesterday I went down to the city. It is Florence, Italyby the way, and I went to the bookshop. What else?I felt everything turned wrong with me and myworks. The young Italians were populating the rivercafe in the late spring sunny day. Sensual, goodlooking and relaxed. I just came from Germany and

even the dogs look human here. Even the older onessmiled into my pale face and I said, I just came fromthe apple store and they told me my computer e morte.She said, morte? And smiled.

But at the bookstore later I took the Kerouac book outand opening in the middle, watching out for help bythe mysteries of coincidence I found my I Ching ofthe day, and the text said: never rewrite anything,write as quick as you can. I was typing and typing,Kerouac said, and my friend came in and said, hurryup lets go, the girls dont wait. And I wrote quicker

then ever before and did not lose a minute and gotto the bus with him for the party and he looked atthe written papers and said this is the best you everhave written. But I, me in Florence, Italy, I turnedthe book back and left for the bus. I was living in anartist house in Florence and searching for a ciga-rette, I entered one of the empty studios, which wasstill empty yesterday. Lots of pencils were scatteredaround everywhere, on the table on the floor, a fewpieces of destroyed pieces of paper in between. I

10


8/17

another further step of embarrassment pleasure ashe started touching me on the hip and around as iftrying to find out if everything fits well just techni-cally and that way for sure he must have discoveredmy embarrassment. But instead of showing disgustand as well instead of showing any fun in the situa-tion he just turned round saying, it is alright, reallyno problem, an expression which I later in the busthought, healed me from all inhibitions and restric-tions, or actually revealed them finally to me. It waslike thinking, what a forgiving sweet and warmuniverse do I live in since the moment I left the store.Excuse me to mix this maybe most profane sensualexperience with any spiritual narrative, but I was,while pondering the experience of a classic personalliberation situation, obsessively remembering thestory of Jacob, the father of Josef and the very strangeparagraph, which is called Jacob is wrestling withthe angel. Jacob often escaping something, onceis escaping his enemy and his most oppositionalfigure, his brother Esau. Once, when it becomesnight and he is fleeing away in order to hide again,

he meets an angel and the angel wants to fight withhim. Therefore in order that Jacob cannot run away,the angel touches his hip, and Jacobs certain nerveof the hip for moving his leg is somehow lame and hecannot run away and has to fight with him, and thenJacob fights with him the whole night and when itbecomes slowly day again the angel leaves him, butsays, from now on you are not Jacob any more, fromnow on you will be called Israel.

Anyways, while writing the non-productive atti-tude I felt quite productive in fact and it seemed

to be such a long time away when I was doingwhat I understood as non-productive experiments.Experiments, because instead of doing so, I hadon the contrary an almost theological belief in theredeeming qualities of productivity. But as some-one, maybe someone like a nature scientist, who istrying to prove the existence of some hidden quality,I believed that in order to prove its central quality, Iwould first have to exclude this quality of productiv-ity from its context and see what happens without

13I decided to leave as quickly as possible and myexpression of denial to buy the sweet long skirt wasleading me quickly into a discussion with the ownerand her lazy daughter, whose order to take it with meI absolutely could not refuse. It was not that expen-sive and so I went with the most beautiful content ofa bag to the bus and again as in the situation of pre-senting myself wearing the skirt I felt interestinglystrange. Though definitely not bad at all. At the busstation I hoped the bus would not arrive for awhile,as I feared the closeness of other people, kind offeared being exposed to them, although the hugepowerful dark skirt was hidden in my bag next to thedead computer. I should add that Florence is one ofthese cities where taking a public transport vehicleis always a very pleasant experience even when it isreally crowded, as these good looking people behaveso smooth and gentle around each other with thegreatest politeness but still look at each other deepand sensual. I almost was at the point of not finish-ing the strange skirt dressing moment story hereand keep the embarrassment for myself alone. But

as the non-productive attitude text is, as many othertexts, just a declaration of embarrassment as well,and as I am not able to really recover its story frommy memory, I should rather finish with the changingroom affair.

The moment when I turned back into the soft negli-gent atmosphere of the gothic changing room, a man,another third person working in the shop quicklyrushed towards me while I actually wanted to letthe violet velvet curtain fall between me and theshop space and to finally undress from the comfort-

able but embarrassing pin striped skirt experience.He was looking very soft Italian but still workingclass in his whole attitude and asked me if it doesnot fit well or if there would be any problem with itand he asked it in the most common way as if I justtried on my usual Levis trousers. The shock of thisencounter with him did not finish my weird strangenew feelings about wearing a gothic skirt withbuckles and strange belts and very charming look-ing metal D-rings. In fact, the opposite. It was like

12


9/17

it. It is stupid to ask what is an artist and even moreso, what is art, I thought kind of navely, but it couldbe interesting to ask, if one or I would be an artisteven without making any work or any object. Couldone still call this existence an artist? Or, as I learnedlater, isnt the artist who does not provide any pro-ductivity not slowly becoming the disparate personwho is left by all his virtues, slowly falling apart andcorrupting slowly all of his self soon as well? Andisnt the one artist, even not so talented, but neverleaving the ways of productivity the one who willstay strong and alive until his last days? It is no plea-sure to meet these artists who arent able any moreto talk about their interests or about their production,fall instead into the traps of gossiping, the traps ofobsessive control behavior or even into deadly envy?Still I questioned the old mechanism, that the onlyway to prove or even to detect the existence of anartist is his evidence of productivity. So the questionwas how to detect an artist in the millions of otherpeople even if he or she is not showing the evidenceof productivity. I was interested in this experiment

too seriously, probably because of being a bit tooyoung too late, particularly in the idea of being thescientist who uses himself for his experiment, as Ithought that was what art is about, proving some-thing by putting your one self into danger and expos-ing yourself badly with it. If you focus a few yearson this situation of course you stop worrying aboutproductivity, but you sacrifice your credibility for therest of your life. For sure in Germany. But you mightdevelop great qualities like fear and certainty ofonrushing doom at any moment. And you can neversee yourself anymore on any upwardly mobile tra-

jectory. Even in case you actually are. The only wayor step out would become the productivity of confes-sional self-exposure.

Josef Strau

14


10/17

science is necessarily organisedrestrictively so that empirical data

can be generated. Although empir-icism here seems mandatory for

gathering data, ironically it can-not function without the illusion!ofholism, albeit lexically contrived.The imminent threat of variation

may therefore be stemmed by thedesignation of the anomalous,

thereby maintaining a chimera ofprecision via an invisible, specialist

grip. Feyerabend uses the example

of language to clearly elucidate par-adoxical empiricism that appears

through restrictive specialism.His chosen example (an intro-

duction to a book entitled HumanSexual Response) is demonstrative

not only because it illustrates the

restrictive language of a particularspecialism (in this case, socio-biol-ogy), but also the potentially dan-

gerous and dehumanising effect ofsuch an avid monological discourse

when applied to its subjects. Sucheffects are exemplified in the fol-

lowing extract cited by Feyerabend:

In view of the pervicaciousgonadal urge in human beings,

it is not a little curious that sci-

ence develops its sole timidityabout the pivotal point of thephysiology of sex.2

Feyerabend states that this is no lon-ger human speech. This is the lan-

guage of the expert. Importantly, he

also notes the conspicuous absenceof pronominal subjecthood in this

writing. Coupled with the extraor-dinarily excessive use of technical

terminology (pervi caci ous?), ! thiscreates a potential schism between

the authors and their readers: eitherby permanently excluding those

who are not fluent in this stylised

language; or by invoking an exclu-sive coterie of specialists who, in

a Sisyphean gesture, continuallydelineate their territory with barbs

of impassable language, separat-ing themselves from the uninitiated.

The riddance of the pronominal self(I or, in the case of the example,

we) is also the banishment of sub-jectivity itself, again with the aim of

achieving a (paradoxical) form of

objectivity. Objectivity is revealedto be the jurisdiction of Method andacademic specialism: Feyerabend

continually affirms that this objec-tivity is the great impasse, dividing

the specialist from the layperson.One exemplary schism opens when

specialists are consulted over andabove laypeople in order to advo-

cate, generate or justify govern-ment policy, underlining a meri-

tocratic, rather than democratic,

ideologyhowever, this is perhapsitself suggestive of a freedom fromthe tyranny of a specialist hege-

mony of knowledge. Feyerabendcites Aristotles notion of balance

and a sense of perspective as acondition to being free. Here, every

area of knowledge available to himis given its due, and allowed to con-

verse with every other, regardless of

17

2 Ibid,. p.115.

DEFIANT DELIGHT:

THE FREEDOM OF THE

DILETTANTE

Ed Atkins

There is no method, and there

is no authority.Paul Feyerabend,

Experts in a Free Society

//

Specialismalong with its cabal of

synonyms: expertise, connoisseur-ship and masteryis the dominant

administration of capitalist hege-mony; it is crucial to the ideology

of labour, professionalism and thegeneration of capital itself. In this

essay, I intend to reappraise this

pre-eminence of specialism via thewriting of Paul Feyerabend, whosewritings on the dangers of special-

ismin terms of immaturity, nar-row-mindedness, andvia Aristo-

tleslavery; will contrive a broaderexamination of the problems of

specializationeconomic as wellas spiritual. From here I will begin

to develop a possible alternative tospecialism in the strayed figure of

the dilettante. Beginning with the

dilettantes apocryphal conceptionin the sybaritic gentlemens clubs ofthe 18th century, I intend to explorethe process of defamation that the

figure of the dilettante underwentthrough its relatively short life and

why, with a view to rejuvenatingthat primordial dilettante: a person

who takes delight in knowledgeentire and of itself.

//

The philosopher Paul Feyerabend

spent a great deal of his life argu-ing against the ideological pri-

macy of expertise. He argued thatan expert, by definition, is someone

who decides to devote herself toexcellence within a particular area

at the expense of development inothers. In this sense, he sees the

expert as immaturenaive to thefull compass of life because of their

blinkered devotion to a specificarea.1 Like an adult restricted tothe diet of an infant, the expert has

an underdeveloped knowledge ofwhat might be considered periph-

eral to their particular speciality.The complications that a diversity

of interest might effect are pre-emp-tively screened out in order that the

specialists focus remains sharpspecialist. This deliberate restriction

does notFeyerabend is careful tomentiondebar an enjoyment of

tangential interests, but these forays

are restricted to the condescendedarena of pleasure and private life.

Such subsidiary interests bow outof sight of their specialty, conced-

ing their inefficacy in so doing.

The specialists research prac-tice operates within a structured(scientific) methodology. Further-

more, the categorical frameworkimplicit within any particular

16

1 P.K. Feyerabend, Experts in a Free Society in!Knowledge, Science and Relativism: PhilosophicalPapers, vol. 3, J. Preston, ed. (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 2009), p. 113.


11/17

administration) and a sufficientlyspecific knowledge base, accrued

through education that is both statelegislated and privately intoned.

Although Feyerabends imageof a specialist is an intellectually

immature individual, this imma-turity occurs, ironically, and in the

case of scientists, mathematicians,and other bona fide expertsafter!the particular decision to specialisehas been made. Growth is stunted

from that decision: the specialist

area continues to swell while itsperiphery wastes away. Feyera-

bends specialists are academics(he draws particular attention to the

problem of academic tenure withinhis essay Experts in a free society3,and it often feels like he has a par-

ticular reader in mindperhapsImre Lakatosi), and he clearly pre-

supposes at least some of the privi-leges required to be able to choose

a specialisation. Karl Marx definedthe necessitated choice of the

labourer, and the symptomatic seg-regation of society as alienation,

with those workers becoming spiri-tually depressed as a result of their

enforced reduction to the status ofmere machines built for one specific

purposeii

. He also suggested thata complete, balanced life within

his communist society was itselfa transcendental state of labour,

with people expressing themselvesthrough a variety of creative work,

rather than the restrictive course

of specialist and repetitive labour.To clarify, it is clear that there are

at least two different and poten-tially oppositional areas of special-

isation: specialisation that occurs

through choice and leads to finan-cial reward and coveted power

from expertise; and specialisationwhich is necessaryagain for

financial reward, but not for power,respect or expertiseand which is

not chosen but is initiated previ-ously to an inevitable professional

specialisation, in the recesses ofprimary education, social stand-

ing and aspirational potential. Thislatter version of specialisation is

superficially differentiated fromthe former by being predominantly

economically manifested, whereas

the former predominantly intellec-tually. They share a common epis-temology (grounded in incentives

of power and wealth), but also acommon rejoinder: specialisation is

a distinctly problematic paradigmof knowledge production and social

position, which runs the risk of per-petuating ignorance, meritocracy

and social schism. It seems clearthat a critical and resistant alterna-

tive should be sought.

//

The word dilettante first appearedin English in the early 18th cen-

tury, directly imported from theItalian word of the same spelling,

which describes a lover of musicor painting; one who takes delight

in the arts (from the Latin dilettare

19

3 Ibid,. p.112.

their apparent practical or fantasti-cal application. Emotional knowl-

edge is as important as more classi-cally intellectual or academic forms

of knowledge: an interest in ballis-tics does not necessarily supersede

an interest in bees, despite a pro-fessional investment in the one or

the other. Here lies one of the otherproblematic delineations of special-

ism: it is almost always allied withprofessionalism, and thereby a

necessary seriousness that accom-

panies economic obligation. Thereis an assumptive transparency to

these accepted relations, return-ing us to a political determinacy of

capitalism. Expertise in a field cor-relates with pay and power, incen-

tivising the need to specialise and

de-incentivising the needor eventhe desirefor breadth of knowl-edge. Economically, it has long

been assumed that an ever-increas-ing delineation of speciality within

the professional sphere is the mostproductive model.

The success of Adam Smithsprinciple of the division of labour

concerns success predominantlythrough speed of training and

production. However, there are

many failings of this model, par-ticularly in its latter-day, ever morecomplicated subdivision of areas:

labourers are less and less flexiblebecause their skills are less trans-

ferable as they become more spe-cific in their application. Moreover,

there is a distinct danger of unem-ployment should an industry fail or

become outmoded.

This is particularly evident

in the rapidly progressive sec-tor of technology: a production

line manufacturing a complicatedpiece of machinery might consist of

twenty different professional spe-cialists, each performing an indi-

vidual, highly specialised task. Ifthat industry becomes unstable or

changes its manner of production

even in a minimal senseits work-ers are ill equipped to adapt. The

level of training received is directlyproportional to the work that is its

goal, and therefore does not neces-sarily stray beyond. This is econom-

ically sound because it manages,in the most restrictive way, roles

within an industry; clearly delineat-ing boundaries, in terms of money,

and also knowledge. Administeredignorance, in the form of specialist

education, perpetuates division, notonly in labour, but also in society at

large. Conversely, the experts at theother end of the scale might perpet-

uate error in order to maintain ten-ure, power. And to mark a distinc-

tion where Feyerabend does not,the financial and emotional suc-

cess of a specialist seems entirelycontingent upon whether or not

they had a choice in specialising;or whether, under acute financial

pressure, they were compelledinto it. At root, it is important not to

underestimate the vital role educa-tion plays in determining speciali-

sation. The privilege of professionalchoice is bestowed upon those

who have relevant qualifications(as recognised by the respective

18


12/17

in their obsession with all thingsesoteric and unreal) is endemic.

That professional specialismis of little or no personal relevance

to the 18th century dilettante seemsclear, but the particularities of the

historical moment that gave birthto the henceforth pejorative dilet-

tante are certainly important in

order to locate an equivalence inmore recent times. The word!dilet-tante!has today lost its historicalparticularity (inevitably, with thespecific contingencies of ruling-

class existence in the 18th centuryinevitably falling by a post-indus-

trial wayside), but has nevertheless

retained its pejorative cast, havingnever been able to reclaim that lost,

affirmative etymology in the inter-

vening years. I would like to suggestthat the persistence of the figure ofthe dilettante as a person who des-

ultorily follows a branch of the artsor knowledge [] for amusement

onlyvi is directly linked to the growth

of capitalism as the dominant ideol-ogy and the previously mentioned

economic success of Adam Smithssystem for the division of labour.

Capitalist professionalism is theideological and lexical glue that

bonds specialism with the econ-omy, and simultaneously excludes

the possibility for dilettantism to berevived without its pejorative tar-

ring. However, if we can establishthat this pejorative termthough

rooted in a genuine resentment

for a decrepit and bloated ruling-class who could afford to maintain

both a Kantian disinterest and a

genuine indifference to the fine

artsis maintained today throughan insidious and assumptive con-

notation related more to not beinga specialist than being a genuine

dilettante, then we might begin tounearth a positively-charged ant-

onym to specialism.Firstly, it is worth divesting!dilet-

tante!of the spurious synonyms thatare presently affixed to it. Amateur

(which comes complete with its ownfractured etymological and socio-

logical history), is a particularlystubborn euphemism, often hap-

pily used interchangeably with dil-ettante. There are, however, signifi-

cant differences. The figure of theamateurvii is defined in opposition(whereas the dilettante is defined

in affability) to the always-alreadysuperior figure of the professional,

who defines the conditions of theamateurs existence: one cannot, for

example, be an amateur matchboxcollector, because there is no profes-

sional equivalent.!Amateur!oper-ates as a prefix, a conditionjust

as!professional!doesthat marksa division of skill, time and money.

Where the dilettante is uninhibited,the amateur is cast into shadow by

their counterpart, the professional.And although any residual ama-tor!(love) within the amateur mightdecry the financial incentive in thepractice of the pure pursuit, it is also

bluntly true that all professionalswere once amateursviii. Similarlyto those of the dilettanti, the origins

of the modern amateur are to befound in the ruling-classes of the

21

meaning simply to delight). Ini-tially, the term was used exclusively

in this earnest and positive sense.It wasnt until the latter part of the

century that the now dominant andpejorative use of the wordto cyni-

cally describe a devoted amateur;

a superficial interest in the artsentered common parlance. Over a

similar period, The Society of Dilet-tanti grew in influence and notori-

ety. Set up by the infamous rake SirFrancis Dashwoodiii, The Society ofDilettanti was initially founded as a

dining club for an exclusive coterieof young noblemen who had been

on the Grand Tour. Over the nexttwenty years however, the club

became ever wealthier, and sub-sequently grander in aspiration. It

sought to correct and purify

iv

thecollective aesthetic appreciative

capacity of the English people, andplayed a major part in the founding

of The Royal Academy. The denigra-tion of the word!dilettante!from itsdefinition of a genuine appreciation(even!love) of the arts, to a barren,idle and affected!admiration!of thearts, coincides with the rise of The

Society of Dilettanti. It could hap-pily be attributed, at least in part, to

their arrogance in attempting to actas aesthetic corrective to a philistine

populous, and their sordid repu-

tation as a troupe of drunks, phi-landerers and occultistsv. It is alsoworth noting that membership was

made up solely of noblemen, whosepower and wealth were hereditary,

and sustained through culturalhegemony. A century before the

mass industrialisation and ruralexodus of England, the ruling-class

exercised their control through, notonly economic or military might,

but more importantly, through an

invocation of cultural capital4. A

lack of interest in society coupledwith their inveterate interest in the

arts, the occult and classical antiq-

uity, leads one to the conclusion thattheir ultimately privileged position(as distinct from that relatively mea-

ger privilege enjoyed by academicsand scholars) allowed them to side-

step the problem of specialism alto-gether. No choice had to be made

because there was no harboured

aspiration to achieve a (non-exis-tent) higher position within society;

greater respect and power (cultural

capital was, as EP Thompson noted,the primary source of power in the18th Century5); or more money(which was inherited and for them,

to all intents and purposes, unend-ing). Operating at this blas pinna-

clerather than at its basethereis no call for expertise because

none of the common incentives tospecialise are present. If a special-

ists immaturity (in Feyerabendssense) stems from a selective pur-

suit of excellence in a narrow fieldat the expense of all others; then the

immaturity of the members of TheSociety of Dilettanti (as evidenced

20

4 P. Bourdieu,!The Field of Cultural Production:Essays on Art and Literature!(New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1993).5 E.P. Thompson,! The Making of The EnglishWorking Class (London: Victor Gollancz, 1963).


13/17

providing practice. By contrast,when stripped of its ruling-class

vestige, dilettantism is originallyand fundamentally (going back

to its positivist pre-history) discon-nected from any hegemony of

knowledge; it is instead, and cru-cially, defined by its blind embrace

of varietyhomogeneously treat-

ing everything as heterogeneous,worthy of consideration or perhaps,

that sneered at delight. This homo-geneous delight does not, how-

ever, stem from an ulterior, finan-cial incentive: it cannot support the

capitalist ultimatum of choosing aspecialism. Neither does it actually

preclude differentiation, becauseit makes uniform the supposed

affectation of interest and knowl-

edge, and extends them. It is alsoworth noting that a uniformity ofenthusiasm for anyor everything,

does not preclude the idea that thehomogeneous level of investment

by the dilettante is low; on the con-trary, the opportunities afforded

by a breadth of consistently main-tained interests might, according to

Feyerabend, prove to be antidotalto the immaturity of specialism:

[No subject] can demandexclusive attention, and eachof them must be pursued with

restraint. This restraint can-not be achieved abstractly, by

devoting oneself to one subjectand thinking that there may be

a limit to it [but] it must be sup-ported by the concrete expe-

rience that goes on outside

the limit [] it is this concrete

experience which preventshim from becoming a slave

[] You can be a free man, youcan achieve and yet retain the

dignity, the appearance, thespeech of a free man only if you

are a!dilettante.6!Prejudice and intellectual bigotryare the dangerous potential sideeffects of specialism. More impor-

tantly however, as mentioned ear-lier it is freedom that is truly lacking

in Feyerabends specialist; spe-cifically, an Aristotelian freedom

of equanimity and perspectivexii.That this balance might only be

achieved via the intellectual gen-erosity (and arguable vacuity) of

the dilettante, has repercussionsoutside of Feyerabends strident

assault on academic and scientificmethod. As noted earlier, there is

a crucial difference to be drawnbetween two types of professional

specialist: those who chose theirspecialism in order to accrue exper-

tise, connoisseurship and power;

and those whose choice was invol-untary or made because of neces-

sity. The incentive to specialise that

is ideologically and financially prof-fered by capitalism, can be moreaccurately considered an order,

in the case of economically disen-franchised members of society. The

resistant alternatives that dilettan-tism might offer are unavailable,

23

6 Feyerabend, p.117.

18th century, and the inceptions ofleisure time. Originally the defini-

tion of an amateur was contingentupon a class-system that predates

the middle-classmeaning thatamateur pursuits were the sole pre-

vail of the rich. At first, the opposi-tional relationship of amateur to

professional was less apparent,

due in main to the fact that thosegentleman amateursix that availedthemselves of leisurely pursuits

only recently made professional,were not financially motivated,

and therefore did not desire toprogress to professional status. The

amateurs subsequent attachmentto social and economic liberation

and mobility during the 19th cen-tury goes some way to explaining

why it entered favourable parlance.The modern amateurx is now

regarded as a serious individual(serious being an important quali-

fier, and one that the delight ofthe dilettante clearly lacks), either

because they desire professional-ism, or because they have chosen

a particular area within which toattain a high level of skill or exper-

tise. In this sense, the amateur liferuns in parallel with that of the

professionally specialist life; andalthough an individual can cer-tainly engage in more than one

amateur pursuit, each is definedby a particular level of investment;

a seriousness that describes a cho-sen pursuits importance above

the myriad others. Furthermore,such seriousness, import and devo-

tion require time: patience and

practice are needed to become

good enough to be an amateurtobe distinguished from the novice

or the dabbler.xi The dilettante, on

the other hand, does not appear onany hierarchy of skill, devotion or

seriousness; on the contrary, dilet-tantism is an approacha meth-

odologythat might be employed

across a variety of disciplines andinterests. The skills acquired in pro-gressing to the level of amateur

blacksmith will not provide any

advantageous skills when subse-quently embarking on the pursuit

of, say, amateur cricket; on the con-trary, the means of approachthe

intellectual welcome that the dilet-tante extendsis necessarily and

definitionally the same regardless

of practical distance between areas.! Ultimately, amateurism standsfirm under the banner of special-

ism and alongside professional-ism: allied and constituted by one

another through mutual aspira-tional motivation, the one buoys

the other with platitudes of devo-tion, seriousness and authority.

Amateurism is guilty of the sameimmaturated ideology of which

Feyerabend accuses the chosen

professional specialist: both optfor particular expertise and powerat the expense of progress in other

areas. The financial incentive inamateurism, although disguised

by its apparent antonymic relationto professionalism, is produced by

that very collusive relationshipamateurism abets professional-

isms adherence to capitalism by

22


14/17

the creator, whose sacrifice andmotivation is often extraordinarily!interestedxvi.

It is here, I believe, that we

find the source of the dilettantesassociated superficial and trifling

nature: the dilettante was a spec-tator, a steward, an observer and

a critic; whereas the specialist was

a creator, disbarred from the cen-tral role of spectatorial epistemol-ogy:! disinterest. Leaving behindthe class-based scaffold that sup-ported these possible definitions

however, we are merely left with

the residual social accrual of inter-est and disinterest, labour and man-

agement. If Nietzsche is right, thenthe move towards an aesthetic of

the creator accompanies a social

shift away from the class castesand blood colours of the 18th cen-tury, and towards a blurring, if not

a!reversal!of class delineations, asthe middle bleeds across the social

corpus, and leisure becomes nolonger the sole domain of the non-

professional, disinterested wealthy.In order to progress the notion of

the dilettante, however, it is impor-tant to separate it, at least partially,

from this perceived spectatorial and

power-oriented conception. Withthe post-industrial middle-classcomes a number of complicating

economic and social factors: the vic-tory of capitalism over communism

meant that, as previously men-tioned, capitalist ideology was, and

is, ascendant, meaning an econ-omy of specialism might prevent a

culture of hybridized spectatorship

and creativity from emerging in the

middle-ground of the middle-class.There still remains the problem of

dilettantisms innate disinterest infinancial gain because it is an!effect!of that gain, and perhaps cannotprecede it. In order for dilettantism

to lose this position of privilege, itmust acquire a creative and labori-

ous interest at its heart. The reflexiv-ity of postmodernism might begin to

provide an answer to this problem.

Reflexivity, as a sociologicalconstitution, was first posited in the

early 20th centuryxvii, but becameparticularly associated with post-

modernism in the centurys latterdecades with the reemergence of

(post-)Marxist sociology; and specif-ically the appearance in the 1970s of

identity politics. Through this socio-political corrective, a perceived

growth in the public awarenessof selfhood, of identity, emerged.

Self-reflexivitythe ability toobjectively assess oneself (a decid-

edly tautological concept in such

rhetoric)provides the self with asecondary, spectatorial, and even

custodial perspective of itself. Forthe specialist, it potentially opens

up a knowledge of themselves from

outside their specialism; from out-side their ideologically constitutedlimits. This externalized assessment

is spectatorial, othering, and dil-ettante, grounded on an external

(superficial), essentially disinter-ested social position. Aristotles free

man, updated to a contemporarycontext, is asked to maintain objec-

tivity,!in particular with reference

25

simply because capitulation to

participation in a minutely dividedlabour force is the only financial

viability. Issues of intellectual free-dom or Aristotelian perspective and

balance do not enter into itthepervasiveness of capitalism means

that in order to make moneyorindeed surviveone must engage

in its economic model. The intellec-tual immaturity symptomatic of pro-

fessional specialism is both affectand effect of capitalisms insidious

success. The exclusivity perpetu-ated by the specialist (as above)

via linguistic, definitional authority(educational or devotional trophies),

essentially serves to reify the domi-nant hegemonic and economic

structures, leaving little potential for

movement between disciplines andauthorities, much less between cho-sen specialists and those for whom

specialism has been administeredor enforced. In order for dilettan-

tism to become a viable alternative

to specialism, it must become bothfinancially and spirituallyxiii.

//

The original Society of Dilettanti

were dilettantes of particular cul-tural products: superficial aesthetes

dabbling in the artistic and philo-sophical currencies of a Europe

on the cusp of the Enlightenment.Crucially however, they were not

practitioners of their interests: witha few notable exceptions (Joshua

Reynolds, for example), The Soci-ety of Dilettanti were spectators,

commentators, philanthropists and

tastemakersand not artists, musi-cians or writers. It is interesting to

note that dilettantism has its roots inan experience of culture and knowl-

edge of creativity, but that the Dilet-tanti were aesthetes in a theoreti-

cal sense. A Kantian definition ofbeauty as the experience of a disin-

terested pleasure rhymes cynicallywith the practices of the noble, cul-

tural capitalists of the 18th century.

The very notion that the manner inwhich one experiences real beauty

in art is through!disinterested!plea-sure would certainly have affirmed

the connection that they madebetween artistic appreciation and

power: disinterest assumes the non-vested position of the non-creator.

As mentioned earlier, the condi-tions of professional specialisation

are economically motivated, andthe primary condition for 18th cen-

tury dilettantism was a lack of this

motivationxiv. According to Aristotle,

all paid employment absorbs anddegrades the mindxv, which is pre-

sumably to say that a golden car-rot dangling before the free person

is ruinous. This serves to underlinethe nobilitys status as custodians

and sole appreciators of the mostrefined aesthetic experiences. Gior-

gio Agamben, however, in his book!The Man Without Content, under-

lines the shift that Nietzsche arguesfor in his!Genealogy of Morals: amove away from an aesthetic ofthe spectator whose investment in

the work is quintessentially objec-tive and disinterestedto that of

24


15/17

NOTES

//

i Lakatos was a close friend of Feyerabend,

despite having almost completely opposing viewson scientific method and the ideology of scientifictruth. Their correspondence from the late sixties

onwardswhen Feyerabend was lecturing inAmerica, and Lakatos at LSE in Londonhas beenpublished under the title, For and Against Method,!aplay on the title of Feyerabends most famous book,!Against Method, published twenty years previously.

ii Marxs concept of alienation is one of the mostcrucial humanitarian aspects of his theory. Let us

review the various factors as seen in our supposi-tion: My work would be a free manifestation of life,hence an enjoyment of life. Presupposing privateproperty, my work is an alienation of life, for I work

in order to live, in order to obtain for myself themeans of life. My work is not my life. (Marx, 1844)

iii Dashwood was an Etonian who worked

for a brief stint as Chancellor of the Exchequerunder William Pitt The Elder; but who is bestremembered as the rake that founded an arrayof exclusive members clubs in London, appar-

ently for the practice of rather risqu hedonisms.

iv Often quoted though seldom cited, the correctand purify tenet is described as the essential gist

of the societys mythical manifesto. It also pointstoward conceptions of a philistine populous, positedby Dave Beech and John Roberts as the spectres of

art and aesthetics: the philistine is insensitive andbrutal; the definitional other of art and aesthetics.The role of the philistine, they argue, is as a ghostthat haunts aesthetics. Through questioning the

ontology of the philistine, Beech and Roberts canappraise issues of privilege, power and symbolicviolence that about in the autonomous work of art(Beech & Roberts, 2002). [T]he philistine doesnt

invent arts negations, rather it produces them outof an inversion of arts false affirmations. (ibid., p.299.) The philistine might provide a link betweenthe specialist and the dilettante, whether consti-

tuted empiricallywhich would be tantamount to asocial grouping, a category; and thereby a special-ist delineationor theoretically, which would treatthe philistine as ideological, situating the problem

elsewhere, which would seem to be dilettantish(ibid., p. 44).v Dashwood also founded The Hellfire Club,

notorious as a haunt for those of upstanding socialstatus who wished to indulge in deviant or immoralbehaviour. The motto of the club was, !Fay Ce quevouldras (Do what thou wilt).!

vi The OED goes on to describe the dilettante as aperson who studies a subject or area!superficially,as not thorough, trifling, and!amateurish.vii Curiously,!amateur!has an etymological rootthat is as sweet as that of!dilettante: the Latin,!ama-torone who loves.viii Robert A. Stebbins, in his article for The PacificSociological Review entitled,!The Amateur: TwoSociological Definitions,!draws up an interesting ifrigid system that casts the amateur as a mediatorbetween the public and the professional; a func-

tionally interdependent relationship (1977).ix Amateurs who practiced their pursuit for thelove of it, played avidly and often to the highest

standards without making the leap to professional-ism. This is because they did not require the fundsthat professionalism would bring as a reward,being as they were invariably gentlemen in the

first instance. Nevertheless they were often highlyrespected individualsperhaps the most famousamateur of them all was W.G. Gracean amateurcricketer who is widely regarded as the greatest

cricketer in hist ory.x Stebbins term. As differentiated from previoushistorical paradigms of the amateur (1977).

xi As differentiated by Stebbin (1977).!xii In his essay,!Experts in a Free Society, Fey-erabend quotes Aristotle on the degrading aspectsof specialism: Any occupation, art, science, []which makes the body, or soul, or mind less fit

for the practice or exercise of virtue, is vulgar; there-fore we call those arts vulgar which tend to deformthe body, and likewise!all paid employments, forthey absorb and degrade the mind. There are some

liberal arts quite proper for a free man to acquire,[]!but only to a certain degree, and if he attendsto them too closely, in order to attain perfection inthem, the same evil effect will follow. (Feyerabend,

1999 p. 118) Nietzsche describes the slave as beingthe dictate of consensus: Nowadays it is not theman in need of art, but the slave who determinesgeneral views: in which capacity he naturally has

to label all his circumstances with deceptive namesin order to be able to live.(Nietzsche, 18712 p. 165.)

xiii Nietzsche seems to suggest that the spiritualliberty of asceticism has the!potential for dilettanteinterpretation (one fine day [they] decided to sayno to any curtailment of their liberty, and go off into

the desert; quoting Buddha: freedom is in leav-ing the house); but becomes overcome by an ani-malistic acute sense of!smell that abhors [] anykind of disturbance and hindrance [] to power,

action, [] and in most cases, actually, his path

27

to himself. Specialism temperedwith objectivity, with self-reflexivity,

allows an unprivileged dilettantismto enter the subjective fray, albeit as

an observer of the self. In this way,it may be possible for dilettantism

to temper specialism, and for it toenter into a creative and profes-

sional dialogue with specialism.

Importantly, identity politics hasalso worked as a restorative to his-

tory: one of the defining character-istics of postmodernism was its iron-

ical and absurdist appropriativemandatewith particular recourse

to modernism, but also to pre-mod-ern epochs such as The Enlighten-

ment and The Renaissance. Previ-ously immutable, infallible epochs

became, refracted through a lens

of contemporary life, inauthentic,mythical. Strategic uses of histori-cal anachronism, genre collaps-

ing, or the blurring of documentaryand fictionxviii, were all tropes in thearts that emerged from the fierce

experimentation of modernism, butwere subsequently realised and

mitigated by a postmodern doubtoften expressed through pastiche of

historical hubris. The performanceof previously expert roles as now

anachronous clichs questions thecertainty, the assurances of truth

that a particular coterie of special-ists might assert. Expertise is par-

ticularly absurd if the subject withinwhich one is an expert is effectively

made redundant by a new, even

more precise truth. This risk ofredundancyand subsequent pas-

ticheis made more galling in the

terms of the administered special-

ist. Without choice, a professionalspecialism can be consigned to the

unnecessary overnight, with thoseassociated specialists left in a pur-

gatory of useless knowledge. Forcertain postmodern practitioners

howeverxix, redundancy, failure and

anachronism became emblematic

of the precariousness of truth andof specialist knowledge in onesown time. By learning a particu-

larly specialist area of knowledge,and superimposing it over another,

one could expose the metaphorical(mal-)content of that specialism. The

transference of a specialist area ofknowledge from truth, via redun-

dancy, to metaphor, is the proof ofFeyerabends skepticism of special-

ist ideology, particularly regardingthat of the sciences. The moment inwhich dilettantism becomes vital

in this correcting process is in theoverlapping of specialisms; the

knowledge of and in a specialism(enough to understand and perhaps

employ its methods) whilst remain-ing essentially detached from itin

observancein order to be free, butto also bear witness to that freedom.

//Thus, because it can hap-

pen that everyone at sometime fries a couple of eggs or

sews up a tear in his jacket,we do not necessarily say that

everyone is a cook or a tailor.Antonio Gramsci,!The Prison

Notebook

26


16/17

Edited by Alun Rowlands and Matt Williamswww.novelpublication.org

NOVEL draws together artists writing, texts andpoetry that oscillate between modes of fictionand criticism. A cacophony of voices, which is theprimary condition of writing, seeks to break thehabitual methods of representation and produc-tions of subjectivity. Disconnected from any unitarytheme these texts coalesce around writing as acore material of a number of artists exploring lan-guage and fiction. This fiction acts as a speculativeforce, no longer defined by what is said, even less

by what makes it a signifying thing, but perhapsas a mode that exists parallel to the visual. Here,art writing is an apparatus for knowledge capture,informed by theory, film, politics and storytelling;writing as parallel practice, different, tangential;writing as political fiction; writing as anotheradventure on the skin drive', renegotiating unful-filled beginnings or incomplete projectsthatmight offer points of departure. Amidst the insinu-ated narratives and materialized visions there is aconcern for writing and the impossibility of fictionwhich is at stake. NOVEL asks us to think of writingas something distinct from information, as at leastone realm of cultural production that is exemptfrom the encompassing obligation to communicate.

NOVEL is distributed through events, readingsand screenings which are staged at venues thatbecome the loci for reading, furnished with art-works and related films that augment thefictioning of a scenario. This scenario will be thesummation of multiple experiences and anxietiesthat demands new forms of critical fiction. Thesenew strategies require an active protagonist, apolymath who can amalgamate them with fluency.Fiction is not made up, it is based on everythingwe can learn or use; a zone in which all sources ofknowledge are valid.

to misery. In asceticism the philosopher merelysees an optimum condition of power, affirming hisexistence and his existence alone. (Nietzsche, 1887p. 77.)

xiv It is interesting to note some alternative trans-lations of the term le dsinteressement (as usedby Kant): as well as disinterest, it might also mean

selflessness or self-sacrifice. Although the 18thcentury dilettante may not fit these two saintlydescriptions, the potential for dilettante dsinter-essment to be a selfless activity provides a striking

counterpart to the obvious ego in the power sought

through expertise.xv As quoted by Feyerabend, but taken from

Book 8, part 2 of Aristotles!Politics.xvi Agamben, quoting Stendhal, underscores the

seemingly interminable promesse de bonheur(the promise of happiness) which an experienceof beauty might hold for the creator. This promise,in its interminableness, is binary to the unknown

loss of Freuds melancholia; the mourning of whichis impossiblejust as the happiness in Stendhalspromise is impossible for the artist.

xvii The Thomas theorem, formulated by W.I.Thomas is 1928, held that the subjective i nterpreta-tion of an action causes the action; and that objec-

tivityand thereby truth per seis irrelevant.xviii Authors such as Donald Barthelme, RobertCoover and Gilbert Sorrentino took on the experi-mental mantel of modernists such as Beckett, Joyce,

Perec and Abe, but confused and worried them.Dazzling tropes combined with Arthurian idiom;interviews were scuppered by cut-up; game showslittered with philosophy.

xix Conceptual art of the seventies often describedthe fallacies of truth through illusion: Linguistic con-

structions of truth often rebuked observable reality(Robert Barrys Inert Gas Series, for example); ortautologically proved itself (Kosuths Five Words inRed Neon).

28


17/17

AGAIN

Ed Atkins

Charles Atlas

Barry MacGregor Johnston

Mark Leckey

Josef Strau

Emily Wardill

Documents

Novel S.C Issue