making my initial mind-map for this project, i didn’t know what to put at its centre; couldn’t think of a term more important than the ones i had thought about and already placed that could have more terms coming out of it. so i drew a green circle in the middle which was meant to be temporary but has stayed like this for the duration of the project. perhaps it was not possible to place words on an entity so obscure which is how the Weird stays weird; we leave it to the next person as only partially explained. I think to the Door entry as not only a way of attempting to understand but also to reach a goal. a goal that maybe was never there to begin with or was too hidden to be found. is experimental writing itself a way of getting down the hallway?
this seminar ‘The Labyrinth: A Convening on the Work of Kathy Acker’ held at the ICA in 2019, was an evening of different lectures about kathy ackers work as a writer and artist. ‘nonconscious cognition’ is a lecture (available at https://www.ica.art/learning/the-labyrinth-a-convening-on-the-work-of-kathy-acker) that attempts to break down language barriers of the body through acker’s hobby of bodybuilding.
BODYBUILDING- acker claimed she could not incorporate bodybuilding into her work and couldn’t place language onto the act of bodybuilding. “some part of me, the part of the i who body-builds is rejecting language”. a “negative space” is created, a space that is blocking or expelling language from the body to make way for a different process inside of the body. as she goes into the gym and trains, she begins to “lose the/a/her concept of language” that should otherwise be used to describe bodybuilding; due to NON-CONSCIOUS COGNITION it is “impossible for introspection” as this is a system that is not recognised within language but bodily sensation. a “potential for growth within renewal”-is creating an ‘art language’ or using creative writing techniques a way of invading into this negative space; introducing a non-conforming way of communicating (about something and to someone). perhaps the tangy, largely unused words within a shelved/misc category are the ones that can break through a barrier or at least let us have a glimpse into an unknown space.
another angle of this research led me to ‘PHILOSOPHY FOR SPIDERS: IN THE LOW THEORY OF KATHY ACKER’- mckenzie wark- looking at chapter THE CONCEPT OF THE BODY.
“these chinese logicians came up with this puzzle: a horse has five legs. there are four legs that one can observe on the horse, plus the CONCEPT of the leg. that makes five. language messes with flesh; logic messes with language.”
maybe a concept can be like a ghost, it’s always present and existing around us. these concept ghosts can multiply and layer themselves around or on top of conversations or walks or while cooking or colouring or wrapping gifts. “there was her body, which one could observe. and there was its concept”, like a ghost-body-concept that is required to learn about a certain action or how another body interacts with your own?
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