Table Of Contentresisting art
by Jeremy Fernando
alongside illustrations by Natalie Christian Tan
This paperback edition
first published in 2018 by Delere Press LLP
Text
© Jeremy Fernando;
Illustrations and cover design
© Natalie Christian Tan
***
First published in 2018 by Delere Press LLP
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ISBN 978-981-11-8442-0
resisting art
III
Art doesn’t come from a natural impulse,
but from calculated artifice
— Sylvère Lotringer
I would like to begin right away by excusing myself
because I know very little of what I am about to attempt to
speak on, very little of what I write.
This perhaps, being an excuse that comes a little too late.
After all, I have already begun, at least in terms of words,
scribbles, marks, remarks.
Not that we can quite know when we ever actually begin.
Or, where a line even starts.
1
Perhaps then, I should have begun by asking to begin again. which was strange response; particularly since it was coming
For, one might have already begun at the moment when, in from someone who had devoted his thinking to events, to
the very instant, one has — when I had — agreed to write on, possibilities, to the call of otherness.
speak about, the possibility of art as resistance, the moment I
responded to a call from my friend, Mohan Dutta — patched For, why do some calls matter, and why do others not; and is
to a line from him, connected a line to his kind invitation — it ever possible to dismiss a call that one has answered? Is it
to attend to a relation that I know precious little about. even possible to constitute it as a call — or even a summons
— if it were not answered?
Which is not a disavowal of what I am writing,
what I am saying, about to say. And, as my dear teacher, Avital Ronell, reminds us in The
Telephone Book, « if Heidegger was there to receive the SA
Far from it. call, it is because he first had to accept the Be-ruf, or position,
from which that ordering call could be picked up, that of
For, unlike Martin Heidegger, I am not about to deny that rector, a position he held from 1933 to 1934 ». Thus, this
picking up a call — even a call that one might not have call « takes place within a context of a prior call, though not
necessarily wanted, had not called for, as it were — that in terms of a subject’s desire but in those of an inescapable
attending to a call, does not already entail a response. A calling or vocation ». If Heidegger could not turn down
disavowal that he declared, perhaps performed, even staged, daddy’s call, it was because he had first accepted the call —
when he refused responsibility for responding to a call from the ruf — to be a son. For, the very condition of its possibility
the Sturmabteilung; dismissing his role, saying: « someone as a call is that one answers, even if that answer were to
from the top command of the Storm Trooper University turn away, to reject, to refuse the content of the call; the call
Bureau, SA section leader Baumann called me up. He itself is always already answered at the very moment when
demanded … » one recognises it as a call. And more precisely — since one
can never know if the call was even intended for one — by
Not a: I picked up the phone, answered the call. recognising its status as a call, one has already adopted it for
oneself; and in doing so, opened oneself to its effects, to being
But a: it wasn’t my choice, not even of my doing — after all, affected by the call; by doing so, it is authorised as a call.
« he demanded ».
And, as Werner Hamacher, dear dear Werner, tries never to
Which translates to: how could I not do so, how could I even let us forget: to even constitute something as a call, one has
say no. to acknowledge that it comes from beyond. Perhaps, more
importantly, there is absolutely no reason to assume that it
Which is also an attempt at transposing genres: that, it is was meant for you, otherwise there were no need to answer
not so much a call but a summons: that, this was no ordinary it, to respond to it — thus, in picking up a call, one always
sound made from a distance — he was a Storm Trooper, already runs the risk of answering a call that was never even
a figure from, and of, authority; it was daddy calling me … sent to one. Which also means that to pick up a call is not
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only to recognise it as a call but Or, as I might say, have said elsewhere,
Language is essentially
to always already assume it for when I write I am always already writing death.
discrete: what it
oneself.
expresses can always also
be used as an instrument And where, even when, even in, writing death, language
Even if the call had picked one of encryption, a means of remains discrete — and keeps its secrets.
…not that there is any way of dissembling, disfiguring,
ever knowing so. or lying. Since, however,
it constitutes all
oppositions in the first
Which is not to say that one
place, it can belong to
necessarily — or ever — knows
none of them, neither
what one picks up, has picked
to concealment nor
up, upon picking up the call.
disclosure, neither
For, to assume it for oneself
publicity nor privacy and
always also means that one runs its idiosyncrasies.
the risk of not only assuming
that one has the right to pick up, — Werner Hamacher
but that one has quite possibly
made the assumption that it is
a call.
Where, what is quite possibly being calculated is whether there
had been, whether there even is, a call.
Where, one might be doing nothing other than hearing voices
in one’s head.
And where, one might well be writing that very call — where
all I might be doing is inscribing Mohan’s call — that is
heard, that is thought to have been heard, into existence.
All whilst trying never to forget Hélène Cixous’, dear dear
Hélène’s, reminder that, « when I write, it’s everything that
we don’t know we can be that is written out of me, without
exclusions, without stipulation, and everything we will be
calls us to the unflagging, intoxicating, unappeasable search
for love ».
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II
Every translation signifies the
space-between, the gap, the
I would like to begin historical chasm or the repression
of history; translation is the most
right away by excusing
cautious form of communication
myself because I know
since there is always the inherent
very little of what I am
admission of a certain departure
about to attempt to
and an uncertain arrival.
write on, very little of
what I write.
— Hubertus von Amelunxen
Even as this might be
an excuse that perhaps comes too late:
for, even as I am making it, it is already made, can only be
made, in writing. Which is not to say that I am attempting
to disavow what I have written, what I will write, but that
perhaps all writing lies in excusing — in requesting a pardon,
in asking for forgiveness.
7
Where perhaps, what is being staged — somewhat calculated
Here I should recall why
Bearing in mind — for, this in its performance — is the very confession itself: for, one
we confess to God who
should always be a burden on should also try not to forget that a confession is only one
knows, our confitemur
Deo scienti, why we only one — that one can only confess when it is seen as a confession by the one whom one confesses
truly confess ourselves to one, to another, who already to, when it is recognised as one.
to God-who-knows knows. For, confession is not
because He knows a matter of knowledge: one So perhaps, what is being calculated, if one can call it that,
it is not a question confesses as if the other already but certainly being set up — keeping in mind that theoria
of knowing; and on
knows of the transgression. always already invokes, brings with it, echoes of staging,
condition: on condition
Whether this is true — both the setting up, performing, putting up in front of others — what
there is no other witness
confession and the transgression is being put on, is the very conversation between the one who
than God-who-knows,
— is beside the point: otherwise, reads, the one who writes, and the texts. After all, one should
on condition we make
it is only a matter of revealing, of try not to forget that this might well be why Plato calls them
our confession to no
one other than God, telling. Confession lies in asking: dialogues.
therefore to No One, regardless of whether the other
to God-who-knows-as- knows if (s)he has been wronged For, conversation always already — or, at least, should —
likewise-He-does-not- — quite possibly even if either entail turning around with (conversare), perhaps even dancing
know, to God the Ear the request, or the matter of with, another, even if the other is oneself. And even at points
for my word, God as my
being wronged, is a lie. of disagreement, divergence, even at points of potential
very own Ear into which,
combat (versus), the other and one are still in relation, still
out of my silence, I
And, this is why confessions can with each other (con-): where perhaps what is being staged is
thrust my avowal, aloud,
only be a rite, can only take place the very possibility of the relationship itself.
in order to hear myself
through rituals: for, it is not so
and (not) be heard by
anyone else (other than much a matter of what is being And where, what is being calculated — for, even as
God). confessed, but the fact that a relationships (between one and a work, one and another,
confession takes place, that one a work and one) might well begin as accidents, as chance
—Hélène Cixous has confessed. Thus, confessions encounters, perhaps even events, maintaining them, keeping
are strictly speaking meaningless: them alive as possibilities, as it were, requires time, effort,
it is not their signification that work even — what is being accounted for, is the very
matters, but the significance of possibility of this dance.
their occurrence.
Especially if one is attempting to write in response with, as
a response to: for, even as I attempt to respond to works, to
thoughts, ideas, texts, calls, in all of their possibilities, one
can — I can — never be certain if I am writing on, writing
about, or writing over, these very works. Even worse: all of
8 9
my words are, my writing is, haunted by the possibility that Where, love is quite possibly another name for a relation to
all I am doing is making the calls, texts, ideas, thoughts, the possibility of another — a relation where both the other
works, say what I want them to say; bringing them forth in and one remain wholly other to each other.
order that they, conjuring them such that they, speak for me;
Where, all that the one who writes can perhaps say is
— without knowing either what (s)he says, nor even who the
prosopopoeia
I who writes is —
So perhaps: I love you: I work at understanding you
to the point of not understanding you,
not just that each writing (écriture) is writhing in the
and there, standing in a wind, I don’t
possibility that it is saying something other than it should,
understand you. Not understanding
is struggling with the fact that it is speaking over, silencing, always already —
in a way of holding myself in front
what it is attempting to speak for, but that in order for and perhaps only
and of letting come. Transverbal,
writing to maintain a certain responsibility, to maintain the possible — in the
transintellectual relationship, this
possibility that it is responding, it would have to always also loving the other in submission to the words of another,
be erasing what it writes. mystery. (It’s accepting, not knowing, the other.
forefeeling, feeling with the heart.) I’m
Where each scribble, scribere, not only scratches into, stains speaking in favour of non-recognition,
— paints — the surface on which it is writing, but always also not of mistaken cognition. I’m speaking
of closeness, without any familiarity.
scratches out, tears, opens, runs the possibility of wounding,
tearing as it is tearing, crying out (cri).
—Hélène Cixous
Where perhaps, every moment of trying to know, to grasp, to
comprehend, to take into one’s hand, prendre — every attempt Keeping in mind the possibility that art is the very movement
to answer, to respond, to attend to a call — is to always — trans- — of what is brought forth through craft, by tekhnē,
already render it dead. But where perhaps, it is love, philia, in into something else, something other than itself. Not that the
its unknowability — in its refusal to claim the other for itself one who makes it is any different — even if (s)he might never
— which maintains the space for life. quite remain the same after. Even though, perhaps precisely
because, there is no guarantee that (s)he might ever be able to
do so again, repeat it, make it again; nor even if (s)he might
recognise the possibility of art in what (s)he has crafted.
Where perhaps, what is art and what is craft might well be the
same, but at the same time, same same but different.
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