NO
: Normcore!
“They say, ‘So what?,’
I say, ‘So this.’”
Iggy Pop, “Hideaway,” Blah, Blah, Blah (1986)
A lump of grayness,
almost suffocating in its thickness preventing the particles to obtain the form
which would disclose their distinctiveness, casts a shadow over the scenery it
can by no means be aware of. The thickness is a color. More precisely, it’s a
shade—a shade of what seems to be an ever increasing darkening nuance of
grayness.
There is an intruder,
however, silently subverting the congestion separating chunks of space around
it. The tiny rescuer of the captives punctures the seemingly impenetrable
thickness with a gentle maneuver revealing the distinctive features of unruly
amalgamation, simultaneously highlighting verbal reshifting from what up to
that moment characterized them as particles towards the signification of the
notion of particulates.
Like the smudginess of
paint spread across the canvass, like pixels consolidating an image out of
dispersal, like digitized narratives pasted on etherized celluloid, like poetry
evaporated from moist barks, raindrops drying on the surface of leaves, like words
emanated from the withdrawal in front of the impossibility to either comprehend
in its entirety or verbalize in totality the subtle, yet vigorous, modification
of the scenery from the site of abhorringly oppressive consternation towards an
openness enabling the smooth, yet balanced, flow of the mighty oxygen and its
two co-dwellers within the precious molecules constituting vivid play of white
and blue interlocutors.
/
The
thematic portrayed here is partly an acknowledgement of the idiosyncrasies pivotal
to the genre forged through the hybrid form such as essay at cultural
phenomenology—a crossbreed between a style of writing, an epistemological
perspective, and a discipline. Partly, it can be perceived as the cluster of
questions informing the subject matter of Steven Connor’s piece entitled
“Obnubilation” (2009).[1]
Few
can deny the intensity of the experience of immersing oneself in cloudgazing.
The notion and the phenomenon suggested in the title of Connor’s essay can be
thought through the idea of the historicizable ahistorical. To bring the
context closer to the core debate of this work, one is prone to invoke the
frequently stated historical fact about the contribution of certain artists on
the way creation is perceived. For example, it has often been indicated how
revolutionary the sound of the Stooges, especially the 1969 self-titled album, has been. As much as
that particular one can be thought of in the context of the revolutionary role,
so can it be said that the following ones have been of very specific
significance for the history of subcultural voices. Fun House (1970), for instance, relies on a darkish psychedelic
strain inherited from the preceding decade, and yet, featured in a slightly
modified fashion. Not only did it bring to the music scene reflections about
and echoes of the liberatory predilections for the experiment such as the
sound of the Stooges, but it also introduced a hint of where such
inquisitiveness was going to find fruition, albeit conditionally speaking. More
precisely, Raw Power (1973) vocalizes
rebellion the way rusty, slimy sewers would display a commentary on the manners
and nuances of discharge layers manifesting themselves over time.
This fervent unorthodoxy, innate to
the music of the band, set the tonal frame in the light of the signature
unadulterated invocation of the opacity imbued in fuzzy, grumpy, unrefined,
untamed intensity of nonconformity : the alphabet of resistance : a selective
approach to the vacillations between dissensus & consensus. Thus, it, if
not foreshadowed, then inspired the nascent punk rock generation to adopt
certain aspects of the subversive idiosyncratic idiom and intertwine them with
the novel creative / critical accounts of the world. As if it were now, the
hybrid including both robust, defiant edginess and a vibrant, yet gentle,
lyrical streak of sorts opened up the avenue of exploring, on the one hand, a
troublesome socioscape calling for an increase in communal cohesion and, on the
other, demands at the level of the individual in the key of integrity, as well.
How
the band’s music redescribed the musical pattern of the sixties seems to be of
particular relevance. Given the following decade that brought the advent of
punk rock, little doubt can be cast upon such an assumption. And yet, for the
generations who have been introduced to the fruits of this paradigm
modification in the aftermath, it is highly unlikely to ever experience the
authentic freshness of the sound in question. This by no means diminishes
either the pleasure gotten from or the reverence for either the revolution or
its fruits.
Conversely,
other contexts do not seem to necessitate the same kind of historicity. For
instance, no first hand experience of the epoch is needed in order for one to
be provided with an unhindered access to the reasoning depicted in Michelangelo
Antonioni’s 1961 film The Night (La
Notte). Namely, in the wee hours of the morning, amid decadent luxury of the
party at the Gherardini family, Lidia (stunningly acted by Jeanne Moreau)
wanders in solitude. Directionless, she comes across a young man named Roberto.
A sudden spell of a night summer shower entails a seductive conversation in the
stranger’s car. Driving through the forest of rain. A romance is emerging from
the horizon of the mansion where they return. Soaked. What it is that motivates
Lidia’s withdrawal confronted with Roberto’s (charmingly subtle, yet
courageous, cameo played by Giorgio Negro) lips approaching hers might elude
verbal articulation. Perhaps, it is not something entirely divergent from that
what makes Valentina Gherardini (glamorously portrayed by Monica Vitti), having
almost gotten involved in a wild adventure with Lidia’s husband, Giovanni
Pontano (the role, sublimating the troubling hollowness borne out of
sweeping—dazzlingly solemn—alienation, presented by Marcello Mastroianni),
restrain herself from interfering with the marriage.
Given
the subtext within which inexplicable dynamics of the overarching question
about what it is is sought, it is not unreasonable to contemplate the
humbleness of accepting the answer and understanding it without entirely
comprehending it in the context of Connor’s idea of impassioned emptying, as
presented in his essay “How to Get out of Your Head: Notes toward a Philosophy
of Mixed Bodies.” It may easily be the very kindred concept that ensures the
perception of the significance of bands such as the Stooges. Likewise, it could
appease the hardship of the conundrum epitomized in the idea anchoring the
notion of the historicizable ahistorical.
/
Thinning
the layers of noise that sometimes look like clouds…To track the debate closer
to the context of Connor’s writing, the vacillations suggested within the idea
of the historicizable ahistorical in a certain sense can be said to parallel
spatial indeterminacy of clouds. Other aspects of the phenomenon feature
similar elusiveness. For example, their symbolic oscillates between the ominous
and the numinous, between the benevolent and the sinister, between form and
insubstantiality, between monstrosity and solace.
To
position oneself according to the value thus ascribed is to accept an ontology.
And yet, a looming cognizance,
half-perceivable, resists being totally encapsulated by linguistic, logic,
epistemological—you name it—patterns available. Therefore, the attempt to
entirely grasp it is to be approached in the vein of Terry Eagleton’s thought
in The Gatekeeper: A Memoir (2001).
He presents a critique of the genre called autobiography, conforming to the
audiences’ susceptibility to superficial entertainment and forced affinities
for sensationalism, instantaneity, and sentimentality; hence, it is to be
surpassed, rather than ignored. Like the problem of power : to be contained,
rather than escaped, as McKenzie Wark observes in 50 Years of Recuperation of the Situationist International (2008).
In
Connor’s essay, clouds roll now as lumpy, slimy miasma, now as thick gaseous
formations, yet magically penetrable by majestic rays. Like obstacles in the
communication channel, clouds hinder the flow. And yet, the rays persist. Like
obstacles in the communication channel, clouds distort the image of the sky.
And yet, they are also “a source of vitalising rain” (Steven Connor,
“Obnubilation” 5). They epitomize the idea of density. Overarching the sites
below, they fuse the concepts of volume and tumult. Like a swarmed motion, they
exude a sense of turbulence. They breathe into the atmosphere rhythm of
collision. Their movements are restless and chaotic. And yet, suggestive of
quirky consistency. The rays persist.
Elevated,
like inflated droplets, swollen divinities, clouds appear as “the scene or
source of visions of prodigious horror”
(Steven Connor, “Obnubilation” 7). Like magnified bulbous travelers
across the horizon, this (self)-dissolving terror-vapor — between water and air
/ between earth and air — meets warm climes : solvent to a cloud’s frown. A
sky’s puke...Pods of plague…Melancholy thunderbolt...Contagious ennui.
Etherized dispassion. Borne out of the gale & storm : solvent to tumult.
They
consist of particles that quite often turn out to be particulates. They are
charged with poisonous ingredients, but sometimes, they bring the much
needed--not necessarily polluted--water. They spread.
Such
travesty is wondrous. Like noise in the communication channel, like blurry
amalgamation threatening to annihilate the distinction between uniformity and
unity, between individualism and individuality. Only, not wondrous in exactly
the same way. Perhaps not wondrous at all. What is, however, astonishing is the
endurance of the distinction. What is, however, startling is the perseverance
of the human face. Despite bewildering cultural flows.
To
sum up in a romanticist tradition without romanticizing either the phenomena or
the vocabulary in question, the dynamic of the vapor might best be perceived in
the key of natural imagery, as presented in Coleridge’s poems “The Eolian Harp”
(1796) and “Frost at Midnight” (1798). Borne out of nebulous tribulation, borne
out of the vitalizing dialogue between the sick and sound—refacement : rebirth
of the human face through alternating cycles of noise and silence / subtonic
hi-fi solidarity of selfless, yet reindividualized, fellow humans united in
enduring hindrances to patient, persistent creation of a free culture based on
trust and love.
/
The indefinable character of the phenomenon and experience
in question can perhaps best be perceived in the context of the elusiveness of
language itself. Not only is it both threateningly obscure at times and
inexplicably protective, but any attempt to confine the abundance of
meaning--on the object and the meta levels alike--within an absolutely precise
linguistic articulation is of the same twofold nature. For example, should one
try to explicate the components constituting the message, the result may be an
exhaustive list including intonation, accent, lexical choices, semantic
nuances, morphological playfulness, eerie and / or humbly plain spelling,
untamable and / or meek, obedient punctuation, coloring at the level of syntax.
However, neither any of them separately nor a fusion of them all suffice to
embody the tacit sphere of that what is conveyed. It, in other words, always
already remains in the domain of resistance to being entirely fathomable and /
or completely effable.
Like quirky wondering in Gang of Four’s number “What We All
Want” (1981), insisting on one’s
incapability to put one’s finger on it. It may be annoying, but, paradoxically
enough, it can also be strangely comforting.
Like clouds : between the ominous
and the numinous, between the obfuscating and the elucidating, between a wild
fantasy fuelling device and a stunning alphabet spelling out the message
comprehendible only in the power of weakness--one’s capability to humble
oneself before and in the service of their mesmerizing stories.
[1]
An extended version of a talk given in a
series devoted to Clouds, broadcast as BBC Radio 3's The Essay. 25 February, 2009 ( http://www.stevenconnor.com/atmospheres.htm).
