posted by Patrick Mahon on January 11, 1998 at 14:19:03:
in reply to: Alone? posted by Jack Butler on December 29, 1997 at 13:08:18:
Embryos,Walls, Spaces (and now, Memory)
Last week I wrote something here, in response to
the peice, and in response to Jack's question
about my own history of constructing (speculating
on) a relationship between embryos and wallpaper.
Alas, the peice got lost... so now I add memory to
the matrix that I'm developing here. Can I
reconstruct a text that went away instead of going
'out' into the space we're all trying to somehow
inhabit here?
1. On "The Yellow Wallpaper":
American 19th century domestic reformer Charlotte
Perkins Gilman wrote a now quite famous story that
addresses my topic. In it the protagonist, a woman
confined to her room due to illness, is described
in her 'descent into madness' (or, as experiencing
stages of increasing neurosis aggravated, if not
caused, by the actions of a dominating
husband).The florid wallpaper surrounding her in
her upper room gradually comes to life; the woman
behind the wallpaper rattles the intertwining
vines. The walls are alive, breathing. 2. Embryos and Wallpaper
Here I want to invoke domestic space as a site
that is inscribed in ways that parallel the
inscriptions (social/psychoanalytical) of the
female body. I do this in order to speculate, as I
did in an exhibition entitled "Re-entering the
House of Flowers," on the notion of 'a small
room': a floriated space of embryonic development.
Here, a viewer may peer at fetuses in varying
stages of development, through tiny floered frames
that resemble 'modernist windows' (in the context
of art), and also conjure the notion of ultrasound
imaging (in the context of scientific study).This
is the room that I, according to my biology (and
the present moment of 'scientific history'),
cannot fully have access to. My experience remains
disembodied, no matter how much I attempt to
'personalize technogenic appearance.' (Barbara
Duden) 3. Glass Walls/Breathing House
A mere few hours after our first son, Thomas, was
born his breathing became laboured. This wa
disturbing to my partner and I, and surprising as
well. He had come into the world so seemingly
robust and fully developed.
Many tests and several hours later he was confined
to an incubator, a breathing house of glass that
would support his life for about a week. Gradually
the results of tests made it apparent that he had
experienced 'wet lung' -- he had breathed in
amniotic fluid as he was being born -- which was
not fatal but required 'medical incarceration'
nonetheless.
I am interested in my son's early history, and I
recall my experience of it as one of emotional
extremes within a kind of dream-like
temporality.But, as I grow more distant from it in
time, I'm also interested in it in the context of
some of the binary constructions that modernism
has been plagued and invigourated by:inside/
outside; glass walls in contrast to those dense
containers of the 19th century and before; science
versus art. I wonder if my son's birth experience
was as if he'd moved from a 19th century-like room
(deep and red) into a modern, transparent chamber.
I wonder about my own ambivalent longings -- that
the chamber remain deep and red, even as its walls
are made transparent and full of light.
(Jan. 11, '98)
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