Parentheticism

() Parentheticism Kevin Rouff

Kevin Rouff ME 120 05/02/14

Parentheticism xxxxx(From and in between)xxxxx

We find ourselves between times, between pulling and pushing, both stepping forward and stepping back, caught in afterthought, hesitant; we are, in effect, caught in parentheses. This, we celebrate. It was not without fault that Heidegger bridged linguistics to broader realms of theory, for it is in language where we must once more return in order to make sense of this moment as one that is part of history’s endless loops (for it is by no means linear). The contingency of “language” is known; we shall concern ourselves instead with the grammatical symbols of the parentheses as the most important symbol of our current historical utterance (“utterance” and not “sentence”, for the utterance is in itself a marker of contingency and yet the essential building block to dialogue as established by Mikhail Bakhtin). Demands of today have lead to echoes of medieval Manichaean divisions: sustain the past or progress towards the future, ornament or minimalism, individual gain or collective

Parentheticism

Los Angeles telephone tower, disguised as tree (toilet-papered)

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good, consume or sustain, bury or exhume. This, we recognize, has no solution. The past generations saw no sign of corrosion in their “progress” (they saw no quotation marks!). At the end of their speech, they left us with the dichotomized “future”, a rhetorical question that has no solution. From this binary system that demands one solution or the other, we see inadequacies and choose instead to cast a sidelong glance, to establish our own space within the imposed linearity of the past-future, to separate with the protection of parentheses. This is not a synthesis to dialectics, but rather an insertion within preexisting and yet to exist spheres of thought, between the left and right of the sentence. Between these walls can we elicit response from our readers – it is in parentheses that the sentence has no bearing on our own utterance, and it is on our utterance that the meaning can pivot. Parentheses lie outside the reach of grammar’s vice. They are emblematic of Reinhold Martin’s “empty-form”, containing “functional-hybridity”, a uselessness in reverse, brimming with potentiality, with “definitive discontinuity” (from Roland Barthes, who spoke of this moment “eternally, splendidly, outside the sentence”). Parenthetical thoughts are invisible, read aloud by some and passed unsaid by others, but always they exert their influence peripherally. Irrespective of the sentence’s railings, the parentheses can redirect a high-speed locomotive, albeit silently. This is no revolutionary thought, but a slightly sidelong grin– ; ) –that is, if you will, a functional ornamentation. To this we come to the more concrete aspects of parenthetical thought, as applied to the trend of today, a phenomenon we’ve somehow termed “design”. We preface this by saying it is perhaps wise to take “design” also with a sidelong glance – the polyphony (both in sustaining the

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“An Appeal to Heaven” (Christmas tree mounted to LA flag-post) – Greg Stimac

past and lunging for the future) imbued in this word deserves caution (in other words, we should consider “dedesigning”). Ornamentation was once seen by William Morris as “a malice prepense – a determination to put our eyes in our pockets wherever we can.” Today the pendulum has finished its swing, and the converse is true: lack of ornamentation in form, the “design look” of companies nestled in silicon valleys, is in fact ornamentation in program and function; the minimalist matte aluminum is a cheap attempt at an expensive reductive look, and the omission of ornamentation is carried out with once more eyes in our pockets. Do we return to older ornamental ways? Is this not a step backwards? Does history not repeat itself? No. If history’s oscillations resemble one another, it is only because we are spirally around a point-zero, coming close to a previous point in the lateral axes but moving somewhere in the vertical. Are we moving up or down? Are our changes in design progressive? Do we move closer to a Marxist utopia, a heaven in tomorrow, or do we move closer to our own destruction, a hell that first flared in bespectacled scientists’ eyes under the great mushroom of the New Mexican desert in '45? Are we progressing, or has our “progress” been branded by quotation marks when we realized our future may in fact be our own self destruction (bombs, pollution, disease, unrest, etc.)? Gone are the days when Jack Kerouac was able to say, “Mañana, a lovely word, and one that probably means heaven.” Thus we cannot progress. Nor can we regress. We have remained too long confined to diegesis of Hollywood and films– today they no longer need to begin nor end (our dumps are filling with DVD players over the remains of VHRs)! Our age has allowed the individual full control cupped in the palm of our hands and managed by the tip of our fingers, and with this comes an indefinite program. And so we must adapt to both the dynamism of desire for control and the indefiniteness of program(ming), and follow the polyphony of dialogue rather than hope for the instructive monologue (a tough parcel to swallow for the individualists of the West).

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(Untitled), silver gelatin, 2014, “iphonogram” & “isolarized”.

We must provide and use potential.

(And so reader, where am I going with this? I will tell you!)

( Empty form is full. In allowing the empty form of potential (Martin), in designing to suit many-fold use, in allowing a design to be a receptacle, be it utility, form, or meaning, the design will remain protected by parenthetical thought; the design will not move form our shopping centers to our dumps (borrowing from Antoine Picon), but rather its rust (currently emblematic of obsolescence) will take acquire new fullness that allows it to continue existing, within society, as a ruin. No dishonesty. Materials are the building block of every utterance. Materials are not merely physical, but are verbal, light, intentions, air, etc. Hiding the materiality is excessive and unwarranted; reveal the devices. This is not material determinism, but appreciation of material for its ability to provide more potential as it reveals itself to both come from our generic world and yet structure itself uniquely. In honesty materials speak to its past existence and its future potential existence, all within the current moment that we perceive. We take, as an example, James Turrell, for his honesty to his material– light– that defines him apart from a magician, and makes him an artist. In this point we also find “sustainability”, for an honest maker will find him/herself embarrassed by the unsustainable/destructive when the materiality is revealed. No fear of Kitsch. This may seem in conflict with honesty, but it is not. Parenthetical thought allows the mutually inclusive and exclusive simultaneously. Kitsch, as in the brusquely honest interjection (as I do here!) of a writer, can indeed remain honest. The Kitsch of the Soviets and Easter Bloc, isolated within their sphere, were beautifully honest. Kitsch can have its merits in its appropriation of past styles (the left side of the parentheses) and the contrasting placement within the future (the right of the parentheses), such that new meaning, fecund with potential, is born. Modesty. Parenthetical thought is additive, but it is never in excess. It is a appropriation to the individual while allowing it to remain generic to the other. It is personalization under alterity. This does not exclude ornamentation as one might suspect; ornamentation is in excess when it is attempts at serving some goal beyond ones parenthetical thought, when it attempts to refer to the other sides of the sentence (the past and future). With modesty, ornamentation has the function of parentheses in its ability to personalize, inject, and ask for nothing. Through this utilitarian state, the ornamentation becomes not accumulated façade but rather part of the design program.

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No “mass production” at the global scale. This can only result in either individual gain (the men in suits) or in collective confusion. Variety (of which our technology easily allows) and regionalism is key to avoiding trends that fall into older models or fail to adequately assume newer states (and they always kindle the schoolboy desire for the “new” after drowning the individual in the common mass). The novel is the foundation for orgasms, maintained Freud, and this must be avoided, for all orgasms have their end. Sustained pleasure is our goal, even if the experience itself is limited– this is often the case when the effect of the parenthetical design extends beyond the confines and overshadows the sentence itself. Humor. What better way to sustain affect than through humor? (There is always room for humor). Hesitate. Hesitation is the key; “He who takes the longest strides does not walk the fastest” (Tao Te Ching). A whey-fueled sprint forward can only lead to disfiguration. We take our time, we allow ourselves the liberty of parentheses. We take into account both sides of the sentence and make our own moment. We have not limited the scale: current design aims at the collective body as a single entity to be saved. In hesitation, we become individuals concerned with ourselves within a collective body of individuals, and the scale has thus been multiplied. )

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Santa Fe to Billings, 2009, Greg Stimac. An American landscape, squashed into its own parentheses. Our galaxy. Man’s footprint. What else?

We are thus faced by limitations of a deteriorating future (let’s face it!) and an inadequate past, yet it is in these limitations that we decide to work. “Limitations of the medium and personal limitations can constitute expressive forces,” says photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo, and in following the same vein as many others (i.e. Andre Gide), we will agree that art can live in constraints and die in liberty. Thus we invite ourselves to be constrained within the confines of parentheses, the confines of potentiality, and allow this to define our design. In doing so, we can, with proud uncertainty, view our historical moment.

(“I pursue no objectives, no system, no tendency; I have no programme, no style, no direction. I like the indefinite, the boundless. I like continual uncertainty.” –Gerhard Richter)

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