> To put it simply: I am interested in technique, not rating systems.
> In fact in the words of Max Ernst, what we are trying to do is "rebel
> against the exterior distribution of objects."
>
> I, personally, don't have these goals. I am very interested in how
> ordinary people will make totally rational interpretations of
> seemingly irrational or random phenomena. Metaphorically speaking, I
> want to understand how people see pictures in clouds, or go about
> naming constellations.
I would have thought that "understanding" this is almost impossible?
There would be so many things that operate on our cognitive processes
when we are trying to make sense of an image. This would include such
things as age, experience, relationships, education, up bringing, sex,
heritage, in fact everything that makes us us?
What is interesting is that people who share the same cultural and
environmental experiences can often see the same thing in an image, or
more interestingly one can be directed by the other to _see_ what the
first sees. Given the right description, it is possible to make
another person see something that they would not have seen unassisted.
Perhaps that is what you meant by providing the narrative? A means
of "showing" the observer what is really there?
> Having said all of that, I guess our rational minds, through years of
> conditioning, demands an interpretation of what we see or read. So I
> will give you two interpretations of your imagery:
>
> One:
>
> [click here for image]
>
>
> This is Dadaist irrelevance. It has nothing to say about my earlier
> essay. The point I am trying to make, and that you resist, is that
> most people will attempt to come up with _rational_ interpretations of
> Surrealist pieces, due to the "years of societal conditioning." What
> I want to do is understand the process, so that I can lead the viewers
> _away_ from the strictly rational and obvious, if I so choose. Yes, I
> want to manipulate the viewer. I have no moral dilemma about this.
That sounds like a reasonable goal. Though I would suggest that
without educating the observer of your intention, and finding willing
participants, most would dismiss it as madness (which has largely been
the case with surrealism).
> In fact, when I look at my own essay, I realize that my fear of it
> falling apart is primarily borne of the rapid succession of images and
> symbols that are developed. Very few of them are repeated or
> developed further, so I fear that we may be left with the afterburn of
> a rapid slide show. Repetition and linkage are necessary to produce
> _pattern_, which in turn is what is needed for a viewer to produce
> narrative.
I'm not sure that the analogy is a slide show? I understood it be
be a landscape of adventure. More or lessa a path that could be
traveled if one so desires?
> This is a story format that I could probably hand off to most people,
> and they would at least understand that I was trying to communicate
> something specific by it. They may not _agree_ with it, but they
> would recognize it as coherent thought. So the exercise that I am
> interested in, is examining the viewer's transformation of incoherent
> thought, to coherent thought. I'd be interested in people's reactions
> to this interpretation: what are the mechanisms by which I got from
> point A to point B?
OK, you really want to see my rational understanding of your essay, so
I will do so. I have also included your original essay to refresh my
mind and yours as you read my conclusions.
MASSAGE
I woke up screaming about a cantaloupe child, which was less dismal
than the atmospheric structure of the sky the day before. Eleven nuns
wanted to rub themselves furiously against a fiery disco ball, but the
static range parameters of musical intercourse prevented any
penetrations from occurring. Foreskins are often dipped in tea bags
of the herbal variety, whether spontaneously ripped from the seed of
the earth, or sequestered in vast warehouses.
The mother of ten projects wants her busy head to spin partially off,
and her body to bloat with grandeur. To this end, the measure of
finance capital is the umbilical of the people. Engines come and
engines go, but it is the force with which we are de-structured to the
Wheel that robs us of our capacity for fish-nesting. I too crave
furniture-nutrition, but cannot locate a good enigma with which to
rule magnanimously.
Eleven scepters are going to be blasted into space this evening.
Three of them will be made from garden toads, but some will find
security through immolation.
Part 1 - Religion
The cantaloupe child is clearly a reference to the origins of
cantaloupes, which was on the former estate of the Pope where it
was first grown. The screaming thus reinforcing the outcry against
the papal system which even today, (though not as badly as centuries
before - (day before)), oppresses the soul and the rights of the
individual.
The eleven (being the _cardinal_ plus one) nuns, all of whom by
inference, have taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience,
to "The Church" all have the desire to act out heir innermost
feelings, and seek satisfaction, but the religious leaders have
placed limitations upon of liberties, which shackles the believers
from acting out their natural desires in this modern (disco) world,
leading to the frustrations of submissive oppressive obedience.
As a means of showing the folly of religious belief, the foreskin
which under biblical law should be removed as a "sign of the
covenant" is shown to have a natural purpose which stands against
the fabric of man man control and has its origins in the earthy
(herbal) unpolluted natural man. It can either be a shield, container,
covering of a life (seed) giving appendage, or else the knot that
religion imposes through chastity which leads to frustration and
pent up emotions (warehouses).
Part 2 - Commerce
"The mother of ten..." To me, this is clearly a symbol of the
civilised world, we feel constrained to live in. Our whole life
is consumed with the grasping for something to satisfy our
sense of importance. Money or material possessions being the sole
objective of most of our society, provides the life giving self
satisfaction of a "healthy" existence.
It goes without saying that we as generators (engines) of this
"wealth" live and die, without really ever having achieved any-
thing that will remain. The end result, is that we become slaves
to our own selfishness.
Part 3 - Resolution
Once again we have "eleven" scepters; religious authority, taken
from the common man (toads), when mixed with the current age
philosophy and means of living (blasted into space), results in
a superstitious control of freedom which we offer up as the
sacrificial lamb to appease our conscious.
Lee.