A word to say that I was delighted to participate, if only sporadically, to
the Artists as Inventors' discussion, eventhough, it (I) may have felt at
times, somewhat beyond my league. Proof, that we will need to go on
eventually and that we have not, by any means, emptied the subject.
Lately I have been reading a French translation of Alberto Manguel's
«Library at Night» and I would like to sign off with a short excerpt of this
book, with a passage concerning Aby Warburg's edification of his ideal
library, that might catch up, with Ramon's concept of «invention of the
self».
So here's my «free translation» into English of Christine Le Boeuf's French
translation of Manguel's book :
«[Aby Warbug] wished that his intuition end up in scientific laws; he would
have liked to believe that the wonderment and terror linked to art and
litterature constituted steps leading toward the understanding of the causes
and functions [of human thought]. However, he kept coming back to the notion
of memory as desire, and of desire as knowledge. In one of his fragments he
wrote "an artwork is something hostile that moves towards the one who looks
(regarde)." With his library he attempted to create a space in which this
hostility would not only be tamed [...] but thought out with love,
curiosity, respect and admiration, a mirror of his intelligent and inquisite
mind.» Alberto Manguel (2006) «La Bibliothèque la nuit», Nîmes/Montréal:
Actes Sud/Leméac, p. 194.
One might also look into Vera Frenkel's corpus, an artist who has excelled
in ficticious «inventions of the self».
http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=1961
http://www.verafrenkel.com
Best,
Sylvie
----- Original Message -----
From: "roger malina" <rmalina@alum.mit.edu>
To: "YASMIN DISCUSSIONS" <Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2009 7:47 AM
Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] invention of the self
> ramon
>
> thank you so much for the addition of "invention of the self" to
> the discussion on artists as inventors !!
>
> it seems to me that the brain is such a "plastic organ" that
> indeed many things that we take to be part of innate nature
> actually are the result of our interactions with the artefacts we
> invent
>
> one of the big mysteries in the history of human beings is why
> it took so long to invent written languages= written languates are
> a really recent invention in the history of homo sapiens
>
> so much of what i consider to be part of "myself' comes not only
> from my interactions with other people and the world, but with the
> artefacts we build= what was it like to be a human being before
> written language and the visual arts were invented ?
>
> --
> Roger Malina is in France at this time
>
> IN USA
>
> phone 1 510 853 2007
>
>
> When in France I can be reached at:
> 011 33 (0) 6 15 79 59 26
> or (0) 6 80 45 94 47
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