Useless as a Church dot blogspot

Down with art as a means to escape a life that isn't worth living

A presentation of the Tate Modern exhibition on Rodchenko and Popova's Constructivism.

Myself and two other class mates are putting together a 20 presentation for our Myth and Mythmaking class assignment.

The brief is to:

develop a case study along the lines of those presented in the lectures, one that deals with the ‘discursive’ approach to myth outlined in the course. This means you should take a particular instance of mythmaking—this can be anything from a political event to a form of artistic expression—and track the way in which it is created for particular discursive ends (to create, consolidate, or challenge a particular construction of identity, to establish a form of political or intellectual hegemony, or to authorise a particular worldview against others, for example).

We particularly want to focus on representation, production and dissemination of knowledge. We would welcome any thoughtful thoughts and tips on how to go about it.

But, also, I wanted to share with you how useful blogs can be for organising, discussing and sharing things with a limited number of people.  After a while we will probably set the blog to 'private' so it is only us that can discuss (this will encourage us to share more, we think, we hope).

I am on one particular mailing list for an organisation that will remain nameless (you know who you are!) and I find it very annoying to have my email inbox full of replies from people who just want to say ' I agree' or 'what do you think?'...WHAT DO I THINK ABOUT WHAT ? It all gets very confusing. 

HERE is the basic bones of our organising blog so far (really basic bones).

HERE is another example; one that our teacher set up to allow us to share things.

Anyway, if anyone has any tips on ANYTHING please feel free to comment on either this blog post or on the comments of my other blog.

Clare's post-analysis analysis

Note to Mindfield readers: this post is an assignment for one of my courses for my 2nd year undergraduate degree at SOAS. I, therefore, make no claim to know at all if i am correct and fully believe that collective education is more effective than struggling on my own! So, I would TOTALLY welcome disagreements and corrections. If you feel to do so, please comment below so all can see.

Read my initial Pennie does Pomegranate myth HERE

For me, the purpose of education is to enable us understand and, therefore, attempt to transform the material world around us which, from a classical Marxist approach, will have an impact upon the ideological superstructure. My story, then, aimed to challenge the way we are conditioned to see things to help us understand contradictions in life which prevent us from making these changes.

This was not so much an exercise in l'ecriture feminine but rather an attempt at applying a semi-post-structuralist-realist(!) technique of literary practice to an analysis that employs a non-universalising materialist conception of the world as its theory. Realism as a literary genre is not intended to be realistic per se: by removing any fanciful extras I sought to provide a truthful rendering of typical characters under (fairly) typical circumstances in order to explore the conflict ridden and contradictory nature of social relations—of production and also sexual—by overemphasising the relationship between the unconscious and those relations.

I aimed to demonstrate this through both form and content.

The form was deliberately confusing. In the first instance I wanted the aesthetic quality of my myth to urge the reader to question the way we are conditioned to see things. The story (does not) start(s) with the interwoven secret 'thoughts to self/reader' which I hoped would compel the reader to emphasise with Demeter. In a post-structuralist fashion I played with the order of these interjections: the opening one spoke about a drought which had not yet happened, in fact the next section spoke about watering plants and tending fields which was the binary opposite of a drought. But to also highlight that these oppositions are not equal;one is always valourised over the other and in fact sets the limits for the oppressed other. The first part of the final interjections could have been placed near the beginning after he (who was he?) cooked the meal. I did this to illuminate that the unconscious fills in gaps and makes concrete that which is not and to show how dialectical processes are at play in that the reader imparts their own experiences on a text. They were not intended to be the story proper but rather constantly referring to something else to show that language is not always so clear cut. I did this to demonstrate that, in the words of Derrida, 'there is no outside the text'... It is often what we don't say that speaks volumes and this absence is still present in the text. I also employed labels at the bottom of the post to reinforce this. Finally on form, the myth was set a-historically to prove Levi-Strauss' proposition that the mind attempts to make sense of, and control, nature in exactly the same way across time thereby dispelling the myth of the pensé sauvage.

Content. I aimed to demonstrated how when the means of production, in this case the fields, are controlled individually by an elite, as opposed to collectively by those who operate them, ideology serves to fill the gap between being alienated from the means of production and the unconscious representation of it. By appropriating the land the ruling class accordingly altered the forces of production and transformed the relations of production and, if we accept the premise that the ideas of every epoch are those of the ruling class, we see how the lies about the bare land were implemented to justify oppression and divisions in society. I played with tropes of class and class division to highlight how they have an impact upon constructions of gender formation and divisions, sexuality and heteronormativity and to challenge other socially accepted norms such as what constitutes a 'family': who exactly were the 'four of us' who went to the city? Who did Zeus find on Demeter's breast? Even the concept of, or signifier, 'mother' is not concrete. Ownership of women is also shown here as an effect of the concept of land-ownership. And, finally, Demeter referred to god as both a transcendental god but also as the self-image of man. This contradiction again shows how ideology, in this case religion, is a necessary product of unfree social conditions (alienation from means of production and unconscious acceptance of oppressive property relations) as explained before.

When in the story I wrote 'I'm not sure if it's seeing me in pain or the milk that he loves but none-the-less I wish he would return to just cooking for us in exchange for sex', I aimed to retrieve Freud's analysis of the object of desire and to confront Lacan when he says that 'desire' is merely a desire for the others desire. Desire is always culturally and historically relative and partly because for Lacan desire has no aim it leaves the analyist to concentrate their psychoanalytic techniques on only the adjustment of the individual whereas for Freud changing the individual rather than the world was a neurotic response.

Another contradiction in a conflict ridden world is when Demeter went on sex-strike. This was, of course, a metaphor for the resistance to patriarchal rule but also highlighted how individual actions do not in and of themselves endure any permanent change. The struggle for emancipation can only be enacted collectively which is why at the end they didn't live happily ever after. They only 'live' which was intended to be a dangling signifier to indicate that the story was not complete (with no full stop) and this analysis also ends with no full stop since I do not believe that Marxism is a complete, universalising finished product and never will be.

On my analysis itself. I appreciate that there are many other points that I could have picked up on and analysed. Certainly my analysis would have been different if I had written it at the time of writing my myth. My plan for the form and content was there from the beginning; but to what extent were these conscious intentions? Has my recent essay on Levi-Strauss and further readings on Freud enabled me to prove what they propose?

And finally; my authorial intention was to 'cut out' that which would make my myth appropriate to my political beliefs. And further the dialectic of intertextuality shows how we are all connected in this world whether we like it or not...

Pennie does Pomegranate

...and he tells me that my breasts are getting empty. I mean, I know 6 years is a long time by most peoples standards but what better way of feeding Xena in times of drought than by the most natural thing a woman can give a child, the milk of a mother.

We go together to feed the animals, plough the fields and water the plants: she's very strong--it's a family trait. The rest of the household will do their bit later. I still don't understand why my small breasts are such a big issue.

...and he tells me that he'll pop by again in a few days to repeat the lovely meal he cooked for us all tonight. It's a shame i'm going to have to sacrifice this opportunity to be instead with my favourite lover.

To see her at my breasts was such a shock for him. Did he really think that he was the only one? He got angry and told me he would get me back for this. Since when did he become my keeper? He thinks he's god's gift to women.

Today it is so hot we don't have the energy to work the fields so we travel to the city; just the four of us. Pennie is wowed immediately by the energy, so many things going on that she runs off into the bazaar. Aphrodite reassures me that she'll be ok--she's strong, it's a family trait. I sometimes wonder whether being 18 is so different to being 35; the markets here are bursting with colour, the smell is delightful, I want to take all my clothes off and roll around in the many flavours. So many well-to-do people, arms linked in what they call love. Xena is already talking about what a lovely dinner party we're going to have when we get back to the rest of the household. No sight of Pennie so we leave a message at the most obvious place and head back laden with as much food stuffs as we could beg, borrow and steal.

I know Zeus will not be impressed. He keeps lecturing me that I should keep a tighter rein on 'his' daughter; if he was around a bit more often I wouldn't mind so much but to tell me that I'm a bad mother takes the biscuit. Since he left the household and became a fat cat grain keeper he's gone all big-brotherly on me. He's watching everything we do. I know he's just trying to protect us all but jees, I wish he would give it a rest. I daren't say anything though because to do so would open the door to the usual 'you're so outspoken' accusations that he tells women when they don't follow orders. Hades, the so-called Lord of the Underworld due to his womanizing ways, gets like this too. Are they trained at some special women-hating school or something? Must be something to do with the fact that they have that silly extra bit of skin sticking out of them. What makes them think that the world, and indeed sex, revolves around it? I guess they just don't understand what the hell is going on, get a far too noticible growth in their nether region far too often and then proceed to blame it all on us. I'm gonna draw a map for him next time.

Aphrodite doesn't need a map, she knows exactly where everything is.

And she loves my small breasts.

Back at the house we all make up for lost time. I take over feeding Xena's mother. It's such a tragedy; she is only 17 herself, young enough to be my daughter, and from such a strong family. Childbirth can be a traumatic experience enough let alone bringing up a child on your own--I know she wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Her rapist is still out there; they didn't believe that such a beautiful woman didn't want the 'attention he showered on her'. I so want to tell him what he has done to her. Maybe one day I will find the courage to re-live this... We all sit up for hours playing games, sharing our stories; sharing our worries. Xena's mother's mind relaxes enough for her to have a quick cuddle with her daughter before returning once again to convulsions.

...and he sent me a message telling me that Pennie had 'popped in'. Apparently she loved the pomegranate. He says it with such a look on his face that can only signify revenge. My body is shaking with rage–apparently I'm being hysterical. Hysterical? Hysterical; I'll give him fricking hysterical. Now I'm being 'aggressive'. Is this supposed to be an insult? I get blamed for bloody everything--I bet they even blame the weather on me next. He says that instead of feeding Xena I should be feeding the fields. What he means is that I should be feeding him up. I know he's been eyeing up our fields--he wants to nick our land so he can force us to work them then sell off the excess to fund the furnishing of his hideous new homes. I will not let him. These are our fields and I will fight for them till I'm blue in the face.

Hades, jealous of his brothers growing piles of wealth, declares himself god too. I don't care who calls themselves god in order to justify the wicked acts they commit. Zeus and Hades are getting far too big for their boots.

They took our land. They tell the men to start acting like real men. They force us women to work the lands on our own and if we don't all comply they will never return Pennie. Each day we come home exhausted only to have to start all over again tending the house whilst the men are still out learning how to be men. They come home late at night with a new range of weird habits--intentionally farting out loud, rubbing their ever-growing-fat bellies, telling us that the house is not clean enough to make them feel like they want to come home at all. Ok, so some days they bring home a pig but we never needed that many pigs before anyway. We're too tired to argue, we just get on with it. We're so tired from all the extra work that the fields don't get cared for properly.

We become brain dead, docile and weak–-feminine they call it. Xena's mother's condition is getting worse; with no-one to look after her during the day she festers away. The powers-that-be call her lazy and force her out to work too. She can't. They take her away from us. Xena refuses to take my milk.

...and the pain is unbearable. Milk oozes every time I move my arms. And now he's happy coz he thinks he has it all to himself. I'm not sure if it's seeing me in pain or the milk that he loves but none-the-less I wish he would return to just cooking for us in exchange for sex (don't tell him I just said that). I will not let him have another drop - not until he returns Pennie.

Zeus says I'm selfish. That his beloved brother told him I am refusing to do my work (I do hate it when he tells Zeus about our sex life). That if I continue to be on strike that the whole area will starve. Do I want this responsibility on my shoulders? Hades had concocted a whole story which spread through the region like wildfire something about spending too much time running around deliriously looking for my daughter and forgetting about the crops. People now think i'm selfish. I think he truly believes his own lies; that the land is bare because of me. I'm not sure if Zeus really believes it or whether desperate times called for desperate measures.

Pennie finally came home. Hungover and withdrawn from all the pomegranate. Her sheepish look takes me back 18 years; I used to love those little seeds--they last for ages but the come down leaves you drained and careless/free. She is pregnant. 'Oh, Persephone' I cry--I use her full name for emphasis. Hades collapses from the guilt. He declares his undying love for me, trying to be posh. This is exactly the sort of gift I don't want--he'll only expect something in return.

...and he helped wash the dishes which is normally the job of the people who don't cook.

The map helped. He won't admit that he ever needed directions though.

And they all live