A light snowfall today prevented us from our planned painting trip but has resulted in the above study of footprints nevertheless. It came about quite by chance as on seeing the snow I had initially resolved to only sketch in preparation for studies to come next month when spring is upon us. You see we are going to try something new this spring, namely to avoid the blossom campaign we commonly mount which every year turns into something of a desperate and rushed scramble; a goose chase round the environs in pursuit of the full bloom. In the past it has been an essential ingredient in our Van Gogh routine but we have also learnt that it does somewhat break the patient approach that we develop over the winter. This grows out of necessity because the cold requires at least two sessions on a work but also there is something in the air that somehow makes that which is calm and slow somewhat nutritious in winter. The question I am keen to answer is whether this atmospheric, could we say cosmological, element will prevent the slow approach in the rush of spring; does our temperament shift with the season?
Cezanne's didn't and when we refer to the patient approach we indeed refer to sensation painting and the use of the Cezannian patch but for all that our footprints study today was lashed on in short order and in salvos of thick that couldn't be further from the Cezannian way1 even if it still falls well short of the Dutchman.
We sketched on the same path as we took the log in our first season.2 Its behind the field opposite the house, up past the electric hut. Plenty of quick plans drawn on snow dampened paper of far away subjects based on our discoveries of Work 7 and changing aspect. The more I think about these effects and Cezanne's reported 18 degree preference, the more I see it in his works. It all fits; his simplifications, his patients, his detachment, it is all aided by simply being miles away. Its like surveillance where as Van Gogh rushes out and confronts the thing with a hot head and a straight back.
Finally succumbing to the falling snow we turned from a well balanced arrangement of a broken tree and stump, which we might go for with a large square next, and made for the path but were immediately struck by the sight of our own footprints perfectly set out next to those of some creatures heading in the other direction. Well without becoming dramatic we can say that it made a deep and instantaneous impression, enough for us to drag our tiring frame back to collect the necessaries and back once more over the field to grab the study and indeed the race was on as the forecast was for a clement afternoon from which the prints would never emerge. You know I remember reading that the much heralded priest of contemporary art Bruce Nauman was once rendered dumb for weeks on end when mucking around in his studio one fine day he hung a chair upside down and had an epiphany!3 Well it wasn't like that for us, our own decidedly negative and tiresome habit of eye rolling at anything approaching cliche would prevent it but something emotional seemed to get us in those footprints nevertheless.
Trying to capture that in the paint was difficult and in truth a well exposed medium format photograph would get it better, we do have a bronica4 at home actually, but we did what we could with the paint. The plain composition demanded we inject some interest and the layers of thick paint are testament to our struggle with that but we don't regret it now, nor the high colour rendering of the snow. Perhaps it doesn't even read as snow now.
That was all yesterday but right now we are lid open and perched in the Espresso House in Norrtälje and are keen to get something off the chest. In the last post which included our 4th video to the Borg we approached the inevitable subject of 'what the hell are you doing?' Here is a question: is it narcissistic to speculate endlessly about whether one is narcissistic? Nothing much to do but munch our own grass as we say in Bowers5 but artistic narcissism is a topic or accusation that we must acknowledge especially considering the way of working we are involved in now, particularly all the monovlogging. But look here, we don't really think we are that narcissistic particularly, no more than par for the course at the self reflexive masters that all artists compete in.6 Is not some variety of internal examination and introspection, whether stream of consciousness thought, or some existential angst, a great subject? Is Virginia Woolf a narcissist? Or Satre? Or just about a thousand others who examine then express themselves in detail?
We must consult a more literary type than ourselves about all this, perhaps you know someone, but for us and our particular game of selves it is the genre of autofiction we seemed to have gatecrashed, and this quite unknowingly I might add. Curiosity peaked we have just searched the Borg for 'autofiction narcissistic' and there is no shortage of hits. A great many though are posing the accusation then refuting/denying it much like we have done here. In others it seems very much that autofiction is a topic to provoke the bun fight in literary arenas and no mistake. There is a raft of old phd thesis on autofiction and countless articles written in argumentative tone, and just a scan has revealed the idea that the question of narcissism seems not so much to be in dispute with regards to autofiction but rather what type it is. For example a certain Bela Grunberger writes that "it is always necessary to speak of two varieties of narcissism: centrifugal and a centripetal narcissism, a primary and secondary narcissism, positive or negative, healthy or pathalogical narcissims". Once again we ogle our distant manor.7 More up our street is the article we found the other day in Image and Narrative8 that looks at the topic in relation to the arts. This one is from back in 2007 which is right about the time we worked for the Open Council and were involved in researching the critical arts for the Context Report and this article and the topic of aesthetic autofiction is exactly what we were looking for. We should have found it but we didn't. We found a great and many sources on the general topic of fiction and art but I suppose they were all in the more activist art stream of practices. The fictional elements relevant to our project at the Open Council grew from the seed of anticapitalist art practice, such as the Copenhagen Free University and the spate of self institutions it inspired, or the collective phantoms described by old Holmes; games of mimicry like Luthor Blissit, the entertaining pranks of the Yes Men and countless mockstitutions all heading towards Occupy like a dart. Having looked well into all that the topic of autofiction passed us by, but the reason is perhaps simply that the discussion of visual autofiction was taking place more squarely within the art world, relating to installation and conceptual art. We have found it now only having come to the topic in the literary context and realising that some of our writing games fit that bill as it happens. Now we wonder if describing our Doing altogether as an aesthetic autofiction might be apt? But that is going too far, we're on our own path and know nothing of the correct labels.
A handshake,
John
PS. Synchronicity now! Whilst thinking of ways to categorize Doing and our reluctance to do so too rigidly we heard a lyric in the air that struck a chord: 'I came across a fallen tree, I felt the branches of it looking at me'.10 Does that not say it all? The rest is just details!
1 See DS 2 Work 16.
2 See DS 1 Work 31.
3 See interview
4 A type of medium format camera.
5 See verse 46.
6 We have found no record of this tournament.
7 Meaning out of area or comfort zone. English slang word.
8 See Joost de Bloois, The artists formerly known as... or, the loose end of conceptual art and the possibilities of 'visual autofiction', Image and Narrative, 2007, issue 19
9 See Story of an Improvisation Machine
10 This is a lyric from Keane and the song is 'Somewhere Only We Know' but as it is not on the list of songs played at the espresso house John may have heard a cover version.