abstract realism allows us to experience and conveys with regard to time, space and meanings, is different with each different work of art. What matters is, that we compare the shifts and turning points at the level of the invisible in the image and how we deal with them in this specific image to on the other hand the level, a comparison that should occur at the level of ‘their abstract-realist’ character. In her article on ‘Abstrakt/Abstraktion’ in Ästhetische Grundbegriffe. Historisches Wörterbuch, Sabine Flachs quotes Gottfried Boehm, in whose analysis ‘the abstract’ is the key phenomenon in modern art and art philosophy: “Abstract art is a genuine interpretation of reality. It entails its own form of recognition. Despite the polemic that asserts the ‘loss of the world’[Weltverlust] in abstract art, the act of rejecting figurative representations verifies a ‘deep transformation in the relationship to reality’ [Boehm] in which the process of a work of art is emphasized. […] Thus, abstraction in aesthetic theory and artistic practice has by no means lost its urgency and relevance; it is, rather, one of the basic parameters according to or against which scientific and aesthetic debate is organized.”46 The acknowledgement of Ettinger’s re-spect occurs without distinct recognition (of representation) and can neither be presented, nor can it become a totalitarian ‘presence’. As Sabine Flach writes, inspired by Boehm, the abstract (= the invisible ‘effect’ of the imagination) touches the radical changes that have to do with the meaning and knowledge of reality (Wirklichheit). In this abstract, there is a dynamic representation of reality, and in this ‘new reality’, ‘reality’ (Realität) can be seen (Boehm-Flach) and re-seen/re-vised (Ettinger). Whether it is possible to imagine, through an abstract-realist artistic imagination, an abstract-realist knowledge that neither subjectivizes nor objectivizes, and neither is being subjectivized nor objectivized, is a matter for the twenty-first century human being as abstract reality.
— Home(lessness) is a text written by Sofie Van Loo for the exhibition Before Everything, and is part of her PhD Thesis.
notes 1
Madness, 1982. Gilles Deleuze-Félix Guattari, Capitalism and Schizophrenia. A Thousand Plateaus (2), translated by Brian 2
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Massumi, London and New York, Continuum, 2004. Vol. 2 of Capitalism and Schizophrenia. 1972-1980. (Mille Plateaux, Paris, Les Éditions de Minuit, 1980.) 3 Clarice Lispector, Un souffle de vie (Um sopro de vida, 1978), translated from the Portuguese (Brazil) by Jacques and Teresa Thiériot, Paris, Éditions des Femmes, 1998, p. 103. 4 Bracha L. Ettinger, “Fragilization and Resistance”, in Bracha L. Ettinger: Fragilization and Resistance [exh. cat.], Tero Nauha and Akseli Virtanen, eds., Finnish Academy of Fine Arts/Kuvataideakatemia, Helsinki, 2009, p. 100. 5 Id., p. 108. 6 Id., p. 111. 7 Bracha L. Ettinger, “The Matrixial Gaze (1994)”, in Bracha L. Ettinger, The Matrixial Borderspace, foreword by Judith Butler; introduction by Griselda Pollock; edited and with an afterword by Brian Massumi, MinneapolisLondon, University of Minnesota Press, 2006, p. 59. 8 Sofie Van Loo, “‘Abstract-realism(s)’ as an affective-cognitive imagination(s)-attuning and time(s)-shifting concept analysed from the perspective/in the context of (some) contemporary art(istic research) and curatorial-arttheoretical research as turning-over of (a) the ‘former’ focus on ‘(mental/ networking...) mapping’ and ‘expanded space’ and its implosive/explosive tensions/consequences and (b) as as a point of view to imagine~experience~feel-think the human being~the animal~the artwork~the text~the (solo-group)exhibition (etc.) as ‘a transject(s)’ (Bracha L. Ettinger) beyond subjectivisms, objectivisms, in(tro)jectivisms, projectivisms, and abjectivisms”, Seminar 2 (lecture-text), IMMRC, K.U.Leuven, 2010. 9 In Ettinger’s theory concerning ‘The Matrixial Gaze’, the ‘feminine-matrixial’ is not something that is only accessible to women: it is a subconscious complex (i.e. it comprises itself an imaginary, subject-genesis and meaning-lending complex) that is open to both sexes and diverse genders. 10 Sofie Van Loo, “Colourline painting by Bracha L. Ettinger: the transject as abstract-realist artwork in an analogue-dialogue with the (un)heimliche”, in Seduction-intolife: Co-responding with Bracha L. Ettinger / Encounter-Events: Reading the Matrixial (Studies in the Maternal 1 [2]), Birbeck University London, 2009, p. 10. 11 Bracha L. Ettinger, “The Matrixial Gaze (1994)”, op. cit., p. 87. 12 Francis Smets, Sophia’s terugkeer – De religieuze crisis en het ontstaan van de moderne kunst [Sophia’s Return: The Religious Crisis and the Origin of Modern Art], Antwerp, Artefactum (Quaestiones series), 1988, pp. 34-36: “Kant, Fichte, Hegel (philosophical idealism in Germany near the end of the eighteenth century) aspire to reconcile religion and philosophy. Indirectly, this attempt can be considered to be an irreligious affair. They aim to incorporate religion into philosophy, which thus represents a synthesis. Religion no longer serves to create a coherence [...] [For the French philosophers of the Enlightenment] a radical antagonism separated philosophy and religion. (Irrational) religion had to be destroyed. Only reason was worthy to be adored. This antagonism between reason and religion is absent in its German counterpart, the Aufklärung (Leibniz, Wolff, Lessing). These philosophers aspire to reconcile the essence of religion with the demands of rationality (Kant). [...] Hegel seeks to undo the divide between emotion and reason in his synthesis. [...] In Frankfurt, Hegel’s thinking is therefore dominated by the concept of unity: Einheit, vereinigen, Vereinigung.” 13 Professor Paul Vandenbroeck’s work frequently departs from the ‘intensifying power’ of art. See for
example: Paul Vandenbroeck, De kleuren van de geest. Dans en trance in Afro-Europese tradities [The Colours of the Mind. Dance and Trance in Afro-European Traditions] (exh. cat.), Ghent, Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, 1997; Id., Azetta. Berbervrouwen en hun kunst / L’art des femmes berbères [Berber Women and their Art] (exh. cat.), Palace of Fine Arts, Brussels, 2000; Id., Macht en devotie. De hemel in tegenlicht in het aartsbisdom Mechelen [Backlit Heaven: Power and Devotion in Archdiocese Mechelen] (exh. cat.), Tielt, Lannoo, 2009. See also: Sofie Van Loo, Gorge(l). Beklemming en verademing in kunst / Oppression and relief in art (exh. cat.), with an introduction by Paul Vandenbroeck, texts by Bracha L. Ettinger and Sofie Van Loo, in cooperation with Gynaika, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, 2006; Sofie Van Loo, The Aerials of Sublime Transscapes, Lokaal 01, Antwerp-Breda, 2007. Compare with the group exhibition Animism (Extra-City, MuKHA, Antwerp, Kunsthalle Bern 2010, curated by Anselm Francke and Bart De Baere). In this exhibition the curators reflect on ‘animism’ from the perspective of ‘the deep gap’ between the colonized ‘primitives’ and ‘modern civilization’. Animism was a means to control ‘the other’ and to distinguish oneself from the same ‘other’. On the other hand, it was also a tool that allowed to reach out to ‘the other’ and civilize him/her. In this context modernism referred to those who had a monopoly on ‘truth’ (reason), an idea that acquired meaning through the concept of ‘objectivity’. What was special about this exhibition, was that the works of art were presented after an Anglo-Saxon model, which to a certain extent softened ‘their animistic element’. Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven’s work (in the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp) stood out, because it eluded the methodology mentioned. It is actually a matter of representing things beyond modernism AND postmodernism, without turning back to the nineteenth century. In my view that is possible if we analyse which works can avoid the model mentioned. Thus, more marginal works can become the point of departure for a ‘new imagination and mode of thinking’. 14 Roy Ascott, The Telematic Embrace. Visionary theories of art, technology and consciousness, critical edition with an essay by Edward E. Schanken, University of California Press, London, 1997 (2003): One of the major problems of such a ‘speculation research’ theory that builds on Marshal McLuhan’s work, is the globalistic, teleological, transcendental unitary thinking and belief in progress. In a particularly biased manner, computer, VR, artificial intelligence, communication technology, nano and neurosciences and biotechnology are linked with spiritualism. But it is rarely clear what the linking mechanisms that are so emphasized actually are. Often the so-called empirical research occurs in a very deliberate, planned manner, which may make it difficult to perform interesting experiments or make new discoveries – or which makes such experiments impossible altogether. See: Technoetic Arts. A Journal of Speculative Research, edited by Roy Ascott (the Planetary Collegium). Planetary Technoetics: Art, Technology and Consciousness, Leonardo, vol. 37, no. 2, April 2004, pp. 111-116, and Technoetic Arts. A Journal of Speculative Research, vol. 6, no. 1; vol. 7, no. 3. Full of love and with an exaggerated hope in mimesis, a tendency emerges toward a global fascism that seeks to cancel the divide between subject and object forcibly, either through a hyperclash or through a utopian merging. This process and research is often contextualized as a rendering back of bios/life (or as a sort of insufflation process), a strategy often obscured under layers of aesthetics, or ‘Neosentience’ (Bill Seamon/Otto Rossler).
15 Freud used the term das Unheimliche (the uncanny) in an essay (1919) in order to describe a feeling of intellectual uncertainty, a balancing between contradictory impressions without being able to reach a satisfactory choice or result, which brings about a feeling of angst (Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny, S.E. XVIII, p. 245. Cited by Bracha L. Ettinger in The Matrixial Gaze, Department of Fine Art, The University of Leeds, 1995, p. 6). By using this term Freud referred to the book Zur Psychologie des Unheimlichen [On the Psychology of the Unheimlich] by Ernst Jentsch (1906), and both, Jentsch and Freud, referred to E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story of the ‘sandman’ who was robbed of his eyes. Unheimlich means uncanny, unpleasant, sinister, nasty, gruesome, macabre, ominous. Heimlich refers to something domestic, familiar, cosy. Something ‘unheimlich’ (uncanny) is thus frightening because of its link to familiarity and for precisely the reason that ‘it’ had to remain secret and hidden but has come to light, the unheimliche acquires its ambiguity. According to Freud, the unheimliche arises from the castration complex and the Oedipus complex which refers to the myth of Oedipus, which itself refers to the incest taboo and patricide: The Unheimlich is what was once heimlich, familiar [his mother’s genitals or her body]; the prefix ‘un’ is the token of repression. After Freud, Lacan used the concept in his seminar 1962-1963 L’angoisse (Anxiety). Heidegger used the concept Das Ungeheure in his lectures on Hölderlin’s Der Ister, which comes close to the ‘Unheimlich’ and signifies ‘monstrously strange’. Heidegger also used the concept ‘Unheimliche’ as the ‘existential’ experience of ‘notbeing-at-home-in-the-world’. Bracha L. Ettinger shifted Freud’s concept from the unheimlich to the heimlich. On the unheimlich: Bracha L. Ettinger, “The Matrixial Gaze”, op. cit., pp. 45-48, 62-63, 68-69; on ‘the heimlich’: Bracha L. Ettinger, “The Heimlich (1997)”, in Bracha L. Ettinger, The Matrixial Borderspace, op. cit., pp. 157-161, and Bracha L. Ettinger, “Fragilization and Resistance”, op. cit. (see note 4). 16 According to Lacan The real is ‘the impossible’: “The real is ‘always in its place: it carries it glued to its heel, ignorant of what might exile it from there.’ If the symbolic is a set of differentiated signifiers, the real is in itself undifferentiated: ‘it is without fissure’. The symbolic introduces ‘a cut in the real’, in the process of signification: ‘it is the world of words that creates the world of things.’ Thus the real emerges as that which is outside language: ‘it is that which resists symbolization absolutely.’ The real is impossible because it is impossible to imagine, impossible to integrate into the symbolic order. This character of impossibility and resistance to symbolization lends the real its traumatic quality.” However, Bracha L. Ettinger shifts the Real to the Corpo-Real, which is according to Griselda Pollock: “[...] at the limits of what Bracha L. Ettinger calls the almost-absence of the CorpoReal Thing that first emerges into meaning via artworking. Stretching from the irrecoverable trauma of the Real to phantasy (where trauma insists in repetition without every representing itself ), transsubjectivity rises from the Real into the Imaginary and the Symbolic through a new vocabulary [...]”. Griselda Pollock, “Feminity: Aporia or Sexual Difference?”, in Bracha L. Ettinger, The Matrixial Borderspace, op. cit., p. 11. 17 Compare Jean-Luc Nancy’s book L’Intrus [The Intruder] (Paris, Galilée, 2000), the last essay in Corpus, translated by Richard A. Rand, Fordham University Press, 2008. Nancy’s point of departure is his heart transplantation and a cancer that followed and of which he recovered after a long battle (see also Claire Denis’ film after the book, 2004). The biologist, philosopher and neuroscientist Francisco J. Var-
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