Dexter

DEXTER

LOOKING AT AMERICA'S FAVORITE SERIAL KILLER 

Dexter is a television series about a serial killer called Dexter who kills 'bad' people. Dexter was rescued from his mothers murder scene at four years old and adopted by the police officer that found him, Harry. Soon Harry discovers that Dexter has 'urges' to kill and he helps Dexter to channel these 'urges' for good by teaching Dexter to only kill men and women who kill innocent people.




We find out that Dexter's 'urges' are a result of him witnessing his mothers murder as a four year old boy, memories he repressed until his brother brings them back to the surface at the end of series one.

Dexters' 'urges' to kill are inherently within him and a big part of who he is, the kills give him purpose and make him feel alive. He lives his life pretending to be someone else and all the while he is numb to feelings and purpose except for when he kills.

The Design for Living dictates living life by ritual and communication. In the first series of Dexter we are introduced to a man who has only a ritual - murder. As the series progresses Dexter falls in love with a woman, Rita, who he describes as 'just as damaged as I am' and in her and her children he finds connection from communication:

"I'm Dexter and I'm not sure what I am, I just know there's something dark in me and I hide it, certainly don't talk about it but its there always, this dark passenger and when he's driving I feel alive, half sick with the thrill of complete wrongness. I don't fight him, I don't want too, he's all I've got. Nothing else could love me...not even, especially not me. Or is that just a lie the dark passenger tells me? Because lately there are these moments I feel...connected to something else, someone. Its like the mask is slipping and things, people, who never mattered before are suddenly starting to matter. It scares the hell out of me!

Further into series two Dexters' victims are found at the bottom of the ocean and a Police case opens to find the 'Bay Harbour Butcher'. There is debate amongst the public about whether this serial killer is friend or foe after the police discover that all the victims had criminal convictions. Dexter ponders on the similarities between himself and a superhero:

"I never really got the whole superhero thing. But lately, it seems we have a lot in common. Tragic beginnings...Secret Identities...part human, part mutant...arch nemesis".

A superhero has a drive or ritual to use their powers for good, to accept who they are, different or alien because of what they were born with. Dexters' natural instinct is to kill but with the help of Harry's code his ritual is to use what power he has for good. The main difference between Dexter and a superhero is that Dexter's power is to kill, and a superheroes power is more...fantastical.

In series two Dexter meets another woman, Lila, who sees him for who he really is, who accepts the evil in him: 

"LILA: We're all good Dexter and all evil

DEXTER: She's looking behind the mask and not looking away"

Dexter has always lived his life according to what Harry said it had to be. Lila helps Dexter realise that his value system is different to Harrys and that he needs to figure out who he is, what he needs and what he wants.

"- What were you doing to your mother in this dream

-Saving her life

-Have you thought maybe you weren't saving your mother in this dream. Maybe you were saving yourself

-It's not what happened

-Don't be so sure. When I got clean, all the seriously fucked up reasons I used began to surface...this could be where your addiction started.

-There were three men. I don't know what happened to them.

-Dexter if these guys are behind bars you need to confront them...you need to do whatever it takes to get closure. How else do you expect to get better?

-I never expected to get better".

As the season progresses Dexter discovers that Lila's words and intentions are not all good ones, and she has manipulated him to bring him closer to her. She does this because, as we find out at the end of the season, she is inept at feeling anything. As Dexter puts it in the finale 'You're just like me'. Lila is exactly like Dexter but this is not what Dexter wants...he wants 'a normal life' just like Rita does. The 'normal life' girl is Rita and as soon as Dexter realises this he severs all ties with Lila and grips back onto Rita. I wont give anymore away but it is interesting to see that two different people can want the same thing and that this formula is what creates love, at least in this tv show. Is love about two people wanting the same thing despite who they are? Or is it about connection, similarities and finding a 'soul mate'?

Tate - "I prepare for the noble war. I'm calm, I know the secret. I know what's coming and I know no one can stop me not even myself. I kill people I like. Some of them beg for their life. I don't feel sad. I don't feel anything. It's a filthy world we live, in its a filthy goddamn world and honestly I feel like I'm helping to take them away from the shit and the piss and the vomit that run through the streets. I'm helping to take them to somewhere clean. There's something about all that blood man i drown it".

The Joker in Batman is largely regarded as insane. However there are those that think he is the opposite, that he is in fact too sane, beyond sane. That he is more aware of the world around him than everyone else and all his actions are reactions to the clarity around him.

"The world is a filthy place. It's a filthy goddamn horror show. There's just so much pain, ya'know" (American Horror Story)

It is also implied that the Joker pretends to be insane in order to avoid execution.

Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

LEWIS CARROLL'S ALICE IN WONDERLAND

MAKING SENSE OF ALICE

 

Whilst analysing a play called Frotting Reality I turned to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to compare and contrast the stories. I simplified the two stories down into equations and then compared the two. What I found was that Elsa and Alice were very similar characters, as were their journeys. Further I researched into the psychology and philosophy of Carroll's Alice in Wonderland to strengthen what meaning I got out of his novel.

Alice in Wonderland is a child's view of adulthood as she nears it herself. It is a coming of age story translated through the journey young Alice goes on. It takes her away from home and into a world she does not fit into, does not understand and is scared of. 

Wonderland's name gives it connotations of being, well, wonderful, but what it really is, is a confusing and annoying world. It is not beautiful or natural and Alice spends most of her time being treated without respect or manners - it is called Wonderland because it is a 

threshold point before adulthood and a place where she can access and observe what is to come:

"Wonderland is a product of culture, not nature...the monarchy, the rule of law, education, grammar and social etiquette...first with a cacus race with wild animals...then the fussy domestic life of a bachelor rabbit (complete with a maid and a gardener). Having discussed growth and reproduction with a caterpillar and pigeon...

 

...and madness with a brainy disembodied cat, Alice finds herself in the more complex rituals of Wonderland society – first the endlessly rotating Mad Tea Party...

....then the shambolic royal croquet game and then to cap it all, the Mock Turtle and Gryphon's nostalgic, Old Boy's duet about their school days” (Haughton).

Alice goes through Wonderland to find meaning and purpose in her life (and it also warns of love to come) and prepares her to establish her own Design for Living outside of the one she already has courtesy of childhood “...what do you suppose is the use of a child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning – and a child's more important than a joke, I hope” (Haughton).

Making Sense of Alice

1/ Down the Rabbit Hole
Alice follows a curious looking rabbit down a rabbit hole, a threshold that takes her to a different world. The rabbit constantly mutters that he is late and looks at his pocket watch. We find out later that he is late to tell the Duchess about a croquet game, and that the rabbit is imprisoned for it later on. However technically the rabbit is never actually late and his time is like time in a bad dream - constantly delayed but persistent. In Wonderland, time doesn't seem to have the same linear existence it does in reality, and characters are constantly moving but not getting anywhere like Gilda in “Design for Living”. There is no time here therefore it is not reality because there can be no death.“We would like there to be life after death, because that alone would allow us to definitively answer the question. But curiosity is no more an arrangement than hope". Those with imagination can imagine another world exists, a wonderland and when they do they are given choices, for example, the blue pill or the red pill?

2/ The Pool of Tears 
Alice is dropped into an environment she can't control. Alice eats food and drinks potions (like pills) to get into the fantasy world and the first situation she finds herself in is inside a glass bottle - a perfect world, freedom within constraints but she wants to get out of it. She makes a choice.

3/ A Cacus-Race and a Long Tale 
The animals all leave because they don't like Dinah (Alice's cat) which makes Alice low spirited. Dinah is her familiarity from home and she can't understand why Dinah does not fit in with this world. Things that used to be accepted no longer are. 

4/ The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill
Alice grows to a giant height “When I used to read fairytales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!...And when I grown up I'll write one – but I'm grown up now...” She does not fit in. Alice then decides to grow to the right size and find the garden after running into trouble at the Rabbit's house.

5/ Advice from a caterpillar
Phallic incident with a caterpillar who questions Alice's identity. Who is she? You never grow old – the caterpillar grows up (changes) but he is still forever young. Alice's perception of what she'll be like when she's grown up is someone completely different to who she is as a child. The caterpillar asks her repeatedly who she is, until eventually Alice is no longer sure she knows the answer.

She talks about reproduction with the pigeon and caterpillar and she discovers she is two people: one virginal and one adult: “I have tasted eggs, certainly” (Carroll).

6/ Pig and Pepper
Alice learns the power of womanhood firstly when she encounters the pigeon and her eggs. The pigeon screams in fright at Alice thinking that Alice is is a serpent (due to her now grown long neck) and is scared that that Alice wants to eat her eggs. Then Alice meets a caterpillar, no doubt another phallic symbol. And then thirdly she encounters the Mad Hatter and his tea party where she realises there is no room for her in an all male world.  

Alice shrinks for a second time in size to get into a bachelor's house.“Well, then, the cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it is angry and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad” (Carroll). We are all mad - nothing makes sense so Alice gets frustrated and begins to feel the need for language to makes sense of things – she's like a foreigner in a country where she doesn't speak the language.

7/ A Mad Tea-Party

The Mad Tea-Party is the part of Alice's mind that destroys the White Rabbits watch. The Mad Hatter makes a mockery of the tea party which is traditionally very proper, and the tea party ensemble sing “Happy Birthday” – a baby's born day - "After the Hatter murdered time, time was no longer on his side and it was made forever tea-time".

“What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking” (Carroll). Food keeps you alive but in Wonderland the characters don't need this kind of ritual because they don't need purpose or stability in routine.

“though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her...” (Carroll).

Towards the end of the chapter Alice gets frustrated because she can't make them understand her and once she leaves them and goes into the garden, she is appreciated for who she is and the truth about how she is feeling sets her free from Wonderland.

8/ The Queens Croquet-Ground
Nothing is as it seems - the roses are painted red, the croquet sticks are flamingos, and the Queen publicly orders the beheading of many characters only we find that no one is ever actually killed.

DUCHESS: 

"Tis so" said the duchess: “and the moral of that is – oh, tis love, that makes the world go round.

ALICE: 

“Somebody said" Alice whispered, “that it's done by everybody minding their own business!"

DUCHESS: 

"Ah, well! It means much the same thing!"

9/ The Mock Turtle's Story
Alice learns that her old school lessons can't teach her everything, “Wisdom is not a utopia. No utopia is wise. The world is not to be dreamed but to be transformed...To see things as they are, to know what one wants. Not to delude oneself, not to pretend...To know and to accept. To understand and to transform. To resist and to overcome...We must accept reality as it is, for we cannot transform what we do not accept.”


10/ The Lobster Quadrille
The characters talk about soup again – a dish with many ingredients, like life where too much pepper causes chaos.

11/ Who Stole the Tarts?
The rabbit knows the rules of the court and therefore controls it. We need knowledge in order to differentiate between truth and false. If there is no truth then there are no rules in court, and in Wonderland anything is possible because there is no truth and no knowledge.

12/ Alice's Evidence
Alice decides she wants to go home, much like Dorothy does in The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy also dreams of another land and follows a path to what she hopes will come to an end with an answer; time threatens her in the witches castle; and she meets three characters who symbolise the heart, brains, and courage of a person (love, success and persistence to go on). When she reaches Emerald City she realises that what she thought was real is not.
What allows Alice into Wonderland and not her sister is Alice's curiosity and belief in more than she sees around her.

 The Wizard of Oz (1939)

What the Characters Represent

Dinah
Childhood innocence. An animal that does not desire or need anything other than necessities. 

The White Rabbit
Time constraints in a mortal world that will always end in death.

Caterpillar
Phallic symbol. Being a young girl one day and then transforming into a sexual woman.

Pigeon
Feminine - Eggs and the vagina. The pigeon is scared of 'snakes' – fear of sex.

The Cheshire Cat
Discovering something that has and always will be there: a blank canvas.

The Mad Hatter
The part of Alice that wants to be completely and fully understood but never will be. The Hatter is her as a baby where time and language and social expectations did not exist.

The Queen of Heart
Things are not always as they seem. The external world.

Interesting Quotes

The Rule is Jam Tomorrow, Jam Yesterday But Never Jam Today

This quote from the novel is a statement on procrastination: we plan for the future and we think about the past but doing this all the time means we don't allow ourselves any time to live in the present. Mark D White of Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy explains that we “recall that such goods are only seen as good in remembrance or anticipation but never during the actual experience of them.” White is saying that jam (what we really want) is only desirable because of the memory of it and the anticipation of getting it again but not the actual having it. Just like anything we ever lust after, we want it the more we can't have it, but when we do get it, it looses value. Instead of wanting the things that do not exist , we should learn instead to live in the actual time that is happening by wanting what we can have so that we can have jam every day!

If all I can know are my own perceptions of things as they appear to me then my perceptions must be the sum of my reality...

If we only ever pay attention to what is right in front of us we will be limited to what we can discover and learn in the world. Curiosity drives Alice down the rabbit hole. “We know that our experiences and perceptions are affected by expectation...emotional, hormones...childhood trauma...St Johns Wort...it’s as if we see perfectly clearly until we dream or drink a mysterious liquid, at which point things suddenly go crazy" (Scott F Harold). But are we crazy and the 'crazy' is normal? How do we trust our perceptions awake or dreaming? We are "never certain which state one is in, and therefore we must be aware at all times of the possibility that we are mad...but maybe drugs don’t lead to realer understanding of reality...that some drugs can sometimes precipitate mysterious experience, and one sees the world as it truly is". Reality is what we make it in the end - I would like to live life in a state of reality (reality being a place where there is time and thus a count down to an inevitable end) with fantasy intersected equally. I believe that whichever reality we choose to live, we should choose it because it gives us peace of mind and most importantly hope. 

Creating Other's Wonderlands

Having asked a friend to draw for me their life in pictures I devised a piece of theatre/film from the result. Funnily enough it turned out to closely mirror the same stories in Alice and The Wizard of Oz:

A man in a bar drowning his fears in drink and smoke whilst a busty blonde flirts nearby. He is writing poetry as he keeps thinking he sees the reflection of a woman in the mirror behind the bar, but every time he turns there is no one there. The blonde doesn't give the slightest bit of interest to his poetry and this annoys him but all the same he relishes the company of her. The fire alarm goes off and the sprinkler system goes hay-wire drowning the place in water. Everyone escapes except for Rex who finds himself handcuffed to the bar, thanks to the busty blonde. He struggles to get free as the water rises until finally his hand slips free and he crashes into the mirror behind the bar as the current sweeps him through it and to the other side. On the other side there is sun and he is dry. He spots the girl he saw in the mirror in the distance and calls out to her before chasing after her. When he catches up to the spot she was in he finds some food and suddenly realises that he is starving so he starts to eat when he sees the girl again so he goes after her again. This time when he catches up to the spot she was in, he finds a bed and he suddenly realises that he is extremely tired so he climbs in and goes to sleep. When he wakes up it is night time and the sky is tranquil filled with stars with a beautiful big moon, and as he turns he realises the girl in the mirror is sleeping next to him. He strokes her face and feels peaceful - time is still and nothing stirs except for a faint breeze. As he sits up careful not to wake her he sees something out the corner of his eye and realises it is the mirror again glinting in the moonlight. He stares closer at it and realises that on the other side is a girl who looks exactly like the mirror girl drowning in a room of water. He decides he has to save her and he strokes the mirror girls hair one more time before heading towards the mirror as it engulfs him in a shower of water. Suddenly he is submerged in water and he realizes that he is back in the Bar. He spots the girl he saw drowning and swims to her before pulling her to the surface and safety.

The Design for Living

THE DESIGN FOR LIVING

“To philosophize is to learn how to die, simply because it is to learn how to live and because death – the idea of death, the inevitability of death – is part of living.”

I used to believe there was a 'Design for Living'. I derived this notion from my immense intake of stories. I noticed that so many are the same, so many characters want and need the same things. My 'Design' said we needed communication and rituals. My take on this has since developed. Instead of a 'Design' I believe it is much simpler. To understand must think about what it actually means to be human. So many have philosophized about man's purpose on earth. My personal opinion is that there is none, we procreate and we keep on living changing the world as we go “Living in the present is not a dream, nor an ideal, nor a utopia: it is the simple and extremely difficult truth of being".  Now reduce your life to this simple concept, imagine yourself as an early ancestor in a cave if you must - just as they were we still are, humans need to and want to survive. We survive so we can procreate and thus change. Is change our purpose? It is the difference between us and other mammals and animals on the Earth. And what is their purpose? To serve ours? Where then will all this change lead us?

"Then there's the other movement... farmers going out to milk their cows... soldiers reporting for duty. Those who believe that life will go on somehow... or just don't know what else to do. People prepare for the worst... but hope for the best. They concentrate on the things that are important to them. All the things beyond fat and flour" Perfect Sense 2011

Now this is where my 'design' comes in. To survive we need food, water, shelter. These are the things that will physically keep us alive. But I strongly believe we also need things to keep us mentally alive - communication.

'To be alone is one of the greatest evils of man'. Alone, a man is nothing. Even the changes he may make to the world around him means nothing if it cannot be witnessed or consumed by others. The need for other's approval is just one of the ways in which we need communication. Irvine says that we all desire to be a ‘somebody’ and for people to acknowledge our existence, to admire us if not love us. Our desires are not random, they are manipulated or predetermined by evolutionary psychology to pro-create which means that whether we like it or not we are driven by an urge to find compatibility and connection in other people which strengthens Lacan’s reading of our constant pursuit for the ‘Thing’ in relationships.

Communicating with others is a way for us to reach out into the abyss of the world and clutch to what we can find. When we find someone we particularly like communicating with we cling on tight. The sense of self is mostly lost as a child as we grow to recognise that we are not the centre of the universe, that our minds are ours alone and no one will ever penetrate them fully or understand them fully:

"In search of something we feel ourselves to be  lacking (a sense of self loss), but it will never exist and never did" 

(Cramer)

Love is the answer. Love in people but love in other things too including religion, art, politics, work or an idea. But whatever you love, it will lead back to purpose, your purpose.

Pop Culture Reference:

Walt, the protagonist in the TV series Breaking Bad, needs to take control in his life when he is told he will die of cancer and so he decides to take control of the money he will leave to his family. He discovers a talent in cooking crystal meth as he gets involved with a young dealer. The two begin to get deeply involved in the Drug Trade where Walt gradually becomes a very respected figure. This makes him feel respected, good and powerful. However when his wife finds out, he stops for her for a short time before making a choice to go back. This time however it isn't just a way of coping with Cancer, it is everything. His life spirals out of control and he loses his family, his friends and his life by the end.

Walt experiences a trauma, makes a realisation, creates for himself a coping mechanism, is confronted, makes a choice and is resolved.

This linear projectile is something seen often in stories. And is key to my 'Design' where almost always the resolve is that people are important. The projectile teaches the protagonist the Design. Or speaks about it, defies it, never knows it.

“To live is to struggle, resist, survive, and no one can do so indefinitely. In the end we must die and it is the only thing we can be certain of. We would like there to be life after death, because that alone would allow us to definitively answer the question. But curiosity is no more an argument than hope.” (The Little Book of Philosophy). Curiosity is the hope that we will find ultimate communication and completeness.

 “There is the Platonic interpretation death, that is to say the separation of the soul from the body, is the purpose of life...through suicide? No, on the contrary, through life that is, more pure, more free since it is freed sooner from this prison – from this tomb, as Plato says in the Gorgas – which is the body.” The cacoon and the butterfly – Lacan.

“I’d rather have your opinion on paintings or books or plays than anyone else’s I know. But you’re liable to get side tracked if you’re not careful. Life is for living first and foremost. Even for artists, life is for living. Remember that.” (Coward, 1994) 

Murals

MURALS

African and Oriental Inspired murals made for Kirriemuir High School, Angus.

Oriental

Designed to celebrate the school's links with China. The three panel mural was drawn and painted on one large piece of mdf before being cut into it's three seperate bits.

My sister, Sam, helping re-colour the ladies face.

Me!

African

Designed to celebrate the school's links with Africa. This one is approximately 3m x 1.5m.

The Sketches

As you can see they didn't change a whole lot. 

Early plans were going to include the help of the local primary school children to help paint, however due to time constraints this never came to pass.

The sketches from which the murals were drawn and painted from.

William Shakespeare - Julius Caesar and King Lear

WILLIAM SHAKESPERE

JULIUS CAESAR AND KING LEAR

I was dubious about reading Shakespeare because of the pretentious and intellectual connotations attached to his works. However I read nine of his plays in the space of two weeks and found this to be key to my acceptance of the plays. I found meaning in Shakespeare because each new play I read made all the ones before it more defined - like building on an argument that suggests a reflective outlook on life. In the end he converted me, not to his plays, but to his frame of mind. I learnt that there are two important things in life that can balance and outbalance happiness: Hope and love. 

What makes Shakespeare difficult is that the time it was written in tends to get in the way of contemporary story telling. I found some things were less easy to accept that others in terms of their necessity and value. For example in Measure for Measure the moral plot is about a woman selling her body to save her brother from death which doesn’t quite resonate today as much as it may have done back then. And so, instead I found myself questioning death and life - which one is easier –instead of the morals behind sex.

A Winters Tale

A story about a man who has success and love but is corrupted by human emotion.

Measure for Measure

Death? A dreamless sleep or a gateway to an afterlife of bliss or purgatorial suffering?

“I humbly thank you. To seek to live, I find I seek to die, And seeking death, find life. Let it come on.” (Claudio, 67)

Antony and Cleopatra

Living for love. Is living for this alone enough?

Timon of Athens

Money Vs Love. Defining flattery from feeling and which of the two is more important. Resentment to a world gone mad with money and all that that plagues

“Timon is dead, who hath outstretched his span. Some beast read this; there does not live a man.” (Timon)

The Tempest

Communist Utopia. Releasing you from dreams and from reality.

“You taught me language, and my profit on’t Is, I know how to curse: the red plague and you For learning me your language” (Caliban, 44).

A Midsummer Nights Dream

Reality within illusion.

“When they next wake, all this derision Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision And back to Athens shall the lovers went With league whose date till death shall never end…” (Oberon, 71)

King Lear

What happens to a man who has power and love but looses them both? Re-birthing into the world - transcending from dreams to reality.

“You do me wrong to take me out o’th’grave; Thou art a soul in bliss; but lambound Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Do scald like wolten lead” (Lear, 178).

LEAR ANALYSIS AND GIVEN WORLD

I compared the hierarchy of royalty in King Lear to those that have power these days – celebrity and the media. I drew out my ideas on thin pieces of paper which I stuck on top of every page of a gossip magazine.

“Scratching at the surface”

Lear Analysis put into the form of a magazine . The mask on top represents identity, the eye holes are blacked out because King Lear has no emotional identity - he is King but not 'father'.

The reason it is in the form of a magazine is because of the contrast in hierarchy these days. In time gone by the Kings and Queens had power, money and fame and these days it is celebrities that have power, money and fame. And as opposed to riding through the streets in carriages to be seen, our power people ride the red carpet and get published in celebrity magazines.

The first page is about fatherhood and King Lears absent relationship with his daughters

We do not know these people that we judge and look at in magazines. We think we do because the journalist writes factually, but we forget about what gets left out, exaggerated and manipulated. King Lear is regarded as a happy and fulfilled man because of his day job as a King. He is so successful that it overshadows how he feels day to day as a human being. We should not always believe what we see in tabloids and nor should we believe that what they say is the be all and end all - things are not always as they seem.

A picture of a father, daughter, son and nephew.

A quote from the film 500 Days of Summer: 

"It's these cards, and the movies and the pop songs, they're to blame for all the lies and the heartache, everything. We're responsible. I'M responsible. I think we do a bad thing here. People should be able to say how they feel, how they really feel, not ya know, some words that some stranger put in their mouth. Words like love, that don't mean anything. Sorry, I'm sorry, I um, I quit. There's enough bullshit in the world without my help".

  King Lear neglected his daughters and took them for granted and when he finally realised how important Cordelia was to him it was too late.

What's Beneath the Surface?

Julius Caesar

Power Vs Love. Is love the one that matters when all else is said and done? What should we do with the time we have, when death is the inevitable end?

“This day I breathed first; time is come round, And where I did begun, there shall I end, My life is run his compass - Sirrah, what news?”(Cassius, 101)

THE JULIUS CAESAR INSTALLATION

My analysis and artistic response to King Lear prompted my analysis of Julius Caesar. I set out to create a string of life that symbolized a journey made up of love and power. I hung this 'string of life' either side of a ladder to create the shape of a mountain. On one side I attached artifacts of love from family and friends: REAL LOVE. On the other side I attached artifacts of success and a desire for acceptance: FLATTERY LOVE.

The side of real love is made up of letters and mementos from my family. Everything could be opened and objects/cards/quotes could be found inside.

The side of flattery love is made up of celebrity magazines. Again, inside every magazine was something extra to further illustrate the flattery love in the play.

"The hardest thing in this world is living in it. be brave. Live" - Joss Whedon. This comes at the top of the 'mountain'.

Power and Art, and John Berger's Ways of Seeing

POWER AND ART

JOHN BERGER'S WAYS OF SEEING

 “You’re never as powerful as you are when you know you are powerless” (Kane)

 John Berger’s book Ways Of Seeing opened my mind to society and what controls our happiness. In his book he speaks about love, art and society which is compiled in a way unusual to the standard layout, for example one of the essays does not use any words at all. Ways of Seeing was made into a BBC series in 1972.

                                                                                                                                          
What do the arts have to do with power?

Power to put out a message, to express and inspire, affect. The power to connect.

Appropriation and Ownership

You can’t get the message out without conforming to the message. Art only gets made if it will make money. If art is made to connect with other humans then surely it is impossible to claim ownership over such a thing. Bourgeoisie ownership - owning the images in a painting.

What does my art have to do with the way the world is right now?

Identity search, expression…

The reason I go to an art gallery is to feel closer to the painters. An artist paints something they feel, and that image is displayed for the public to look at. But what you are really looking at is not a random image; it’s the soul of the artist, the inside of his head. Art is more exciting to me if I know why the painting was made, when and where. It’s the same with plays. You are not reading a story. You’re reading into a mans outlook on life. His feelings are carefully constructed into a piece of art work that should connect with anyone who reads it - connecting with the mind of another human being.

This is a landscape of a cornfield with birds flying out of it. Look at it for a second. Then scroll down.

This painting is the last picture that Vincent Van Gogh painted before he killed himself.

“When in love, the sight of the beloved has a completeness which no words and no embrace can match: a completeness which only the act of making love can temporarily accommodate” (Berger, 8)
 

 Tab A into Tab B. Two people become one. Become whole.

“By refusing to enter the conspiracy, one remains innocent of that conspiracy. But to remain innocent may also be to remain ignorant. The issue is not between innocence and knowledge (or between the natural and the cultural) but between a total approach to art which attempts to relate it to every aspect of experience and the esoteric approach of a few specialized experts who are the clerks of the nostalgia of a ruling class in decline” (Berger, 32).

 

“This annologue between possessing and the way of seeing is incorporated in oil painting” (Berger, 83).
 

“Publicity is always about the future buyer. It offers him an image of himself made glamorous by the product or opportunity it is trying to sell. The image then makes him envious of himself as he might be. Yet what makes this self-which-he-might-be enviable? The envy of others. Publicity is about social relations, not objects. Its promise is not of pleasure, but of happiness: happiness as judged from the outside by others…”(Berger, 132).

“Money is life. Not in the sense that without money you starve. Not in the sense that capital gives one class power over the entire lives of another class. But in the sense that money is the token of, and the key to, every human capacity. The power to spend money is the power to live” (Berger, 143).

                                                                                                                                               


Short Experimental Art Film: