'Commentators have frequently identified the category of the sublime as one which overthrows the limits of the classicalconception of beauty. Certainly, conceptions of the sublime seen to licence types of art production that are characterized by a lack of proportion and symmetry which figure in descriptions of the beautiful object. That which is vast, ill defined, irregular or capable of stirring negative emotions is now admitted to aesthetics under the description of the sublime.' Mark Cousins, using Kant's Third Critique. When an object ceases to hold its symbolic integrity, it is as if the inside has become bigger than the outside, breaking down the spatial logic of the relationship between the self and the world. It is as if the inside has started to grow. In coming through the surface, the ugly stuff is getting closer… This ugly stuff is always too close to us and we have to run away. The ‘undead’ pursue us because the ugly is always breaking down the spatial isolation of the subject. On a more prosaic level, spots, snot, dribbling saliva, piss (the physical eruptions of other bodies) are always closer to you, psychologically, than the rest of the person. (Hutchinson, M. 2002, p 153).
‘Order implies restriction’ (Douglas, M, 1966, p 94) Where Mary Douglas speaks of order, much in the same way as Hutchinson describes the ugly spilling from its outer confines, disorder is present, a disruption is taking place. The disruption my work presents to the viewer can be witnessed by the clay cladding of dirty matter, or as Douglas implies that dirt is a matter out of place, (1966, p 35) signifying an unwanted element. Douglas illustrates this by the way we classify items to be ordered, or as she instigates as ‘pre-selection or a built in filtering system’ (1966, p 37) the way we in which we pre-select, what we choose to see, but if forced to acknowledge items we find ‘out’ of place, Douglas adds, can under scientific studies ‘cause the viewer to feel physically sick’. (Douglas, M. 1966, p 37) If dirt symbolizes a lack of order and a rejection of it, therefore a direct relationship to the way I use clay – the origins of clay is a form of dirty matter, sludge, by symbolically submerging, cladding, smearing clay in order to spread dirt, thus becoming a symbolism of disorder, an unwanted material. The unwanted, or disregarded, presents ideas of the wretched, abjected, lowly, unseen poverty and the horrors we try to cocoon ourselves from........ And finally I will conclude these ideas in the form of a boundary in disallowing dirt, pollution to enter in, as dirt pollution can be seen as evil, poisoning our existence, changing our ideas of cleanliness making us feel uncomfortable, but what is comfort? And where does it come from? Our own personal experiences with comfort is often pre-constructed, by the Mother’s idea of comfort and safety, hygiene and ideas of cleanliness may have been passed on through a generational way. To oppose this idea would be by a ‘dirty protest’ or going against your mother’s desires, of cleanliness. A child whilst being left to his/her own devices, not unlike myself as a child, will revel in dirt. I made mud pies happily in the back yard, gobbled up spat out chewing gum from any floor, with bared fingers ate cat food left out on a saucer, whilst playing in nannies garden, my four year old self was unknowingly, filth incarnate. There was no built in cleanliness gage. My mother’s ideas have a continued thread of understanding of what it is to be clean, playing in dirt and mud, is quite possibly a re-enactment, of my own built in selection, re-echoing Mary Douglas’s ‘pre-selection’ idea, by immersing my hands, fingers and nails deep into the pockets of clay, this action to someone else would be a horrifying act of self-defilement.
Excerpts from essay, Hender,S.J. 2012 THINE EYE’S ARE CLOSED – but thy know true evil and ugly do exist…a slim slice of what should be a larger essay.
Douglas, M.(1966) Purity and danger: An analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo.London: Routledge Cousins, M. (1994) The Ugly. In : Beech, D. Beauty: documents of contempory art. Cambridge UK: The MIT Press (also a reference from a lecture at Chelsea College of Art) Hutchinson, M. (2002) Nausea:Encounters with Ugliness. In : Beech, D. BEAUTY Documents of Contempory Art. Cambridge, UK – The MIT Press (also a reference from a lecture at Chelsea College of Art)