�i:1-SemI""'" A _ P -f-a4t7"-f-@ 4�olume III, �o. 1, -� - '42-• 1-2 42- 42 13-16 42 1-8 42 3 1-4 5 -8 - 5 S-;-B-- II 1- 16 5 - -----j-8 -A -A- LYERE-2 5 3- 4 D'-�ERE 35 [)I G DIG EO EO DIG E(l 40 45 9 1-4 DISNE Y 40 DISNEY 45 IlU �NT 100 - -8- -A- -A- 2 1- 4 10 J-4 4 J -8 6 1-2 7 1-2 8 1-2 2 ---:<5 1-4 \ 10 3-4 50 DISNEY 35 A 1-16 5-8 D"ffiE 30 35 1-4 7-8- J 7-8 5-8 4 7-8 3-8 2 9-16 ,31 - 2 -8- �_'-- 76-'j --1 76- ..-;- -1-2' '15-16. C TE.L 2 0 - 1 5 7-8 � 15 7-8 35 1-2 35 1-2 -A- 35 1-2 8 1-4 49 1-4 II 3-4 5 1-2 -A- 6 31-2 49 1-4 49 1-4 42 3-4 42 3-4 42 3-4 -8- 131 3-4 31 3-4 Kat�� M!kerDLee IBreUerD1 WilliamlBll rrou� JOMeQ.��D Dav!d, i;iooRe �cdGlijetp_ el��zi� _ DouglassDonnDRichard-ForemanDMicbel iIl(}Imlult Joh�qfqr��DPhii �sDeI!fistop�e� KW�s Jfllto�FraJl�ois LyotardDiJjrike M¢inliof 32 LLETJack SmithDRobe1't'Wilsow 01 LET J5 A I') Land more 17 3-il DLJ eNT 10 21 1-2 23 1-4 24 1-4 32 GI - - , 1-16 G-WYR 1-8 J -A- {- I A 32 us:t +0 .. . 5 +0 .... --- BRAlN mCld. • • • • • - "------ I , semiotexte 522 Philosophy HaiL Columbia University New York, N.Y. t0027 (212) 230-3956 EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: Denise Green, Denis Hollier, James Leigh, Sylvete Lotringcr (General Editor), Roger McKeon. Jobn Rajcbman. Michel Rosenfeld, Pal Steir. ASSOCIATE EDITORS Tbomas Gora, Suzanne Guerlac, Lee Hildreth. DESIGN EDITOR Gil Eisner ISSUE DESIGNERS Martim Avillez, Kathryn Bigelow, Diego Cortez. Peter Downsborough, Denise Green, Linda McNeill, Michael OblowUz, Pat Steir. PRODUCTION STAFF Janet Adams, Fred Dewey, Chuck Clark, Jonathan Crary, Vivian Efthimides, Rick Gardner, Judith Garrecht, Georgina Horvath, Alice Jardine, Usa Kahane, David Levine, Louis Marvick, Rachel McComas, Stamos Metzidakis. Linda McNeill, Rita Nader, Betsy Rorschach, Andrew Rosenbaum, Addie Russo, Julio Santo Domingo, Alan Schwab, Syma Solovitch, Irwin Tempkin, Peggy Waller, Marc Weinrich. SPECIAL EDITOR FOR SCHIZO-CULTURE Sylvere Lotringer BENEFACTORS Gerard Bucber, Katbleen Duda, Mia Lotringer, David Neiger, Jobn Rajcbman. Pamela Tytell. Contributions of $50.00 or more are listed as Benefactors and 525.00 as Sponsors. All contributions are tax�deductible. SUBSCR1PTlONS Individuals: 51.50 per volume; Institutions: 518.00. Three issues comprise one volume. Add 52.00 per volume for surface mail outside the U.S. and Canada. Checks should be made payable to Semiotext(e}, Inc. Exclusively Use International Money Orders if outside the U.S. Semiotext(e} is a self-supporting, non profit journal. It is Indexed in MLA Bibliography and French XX Bibliography, ©by Semiotext(e), Inc. 1978 ISSN. 0093·95779 SCHIZO- CULTURE Michel Foucault, The Eye ojPower • • , . " • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • . • • • • • • • • . • . • • • • • • • • • • • 6 Robert Wilson, Interview . • • . . • • • • • • . • • . • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • . • . • • . . • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • 20 Fran�ois Pt'iraldi, A Schizo and the1nstitution . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . " ............ 20 Guy Hocquenghem, We All Can 't Die in Bed • • . • • • . • • • • • • • . • • • • • . . • . • • • • • • • • • • • • 28 The Ramones, Teenage Lobotomy • • • . • • • • . . • • • • • . • ' " • . • • • • • • • • • . • , • • " • • " • • • 32 The Boston Declaration on Psychiatric Oppression . . . • • . . • ' " • • " • • • , . • • . • . ' " • • . 34 William Burroughs, The Limits of Control • • . • • • • • . • • . • , • • " • • • • " . . • • • • • • • • • • • , • • 38 Louis Wolfson, Full Stopfor an Infernal Planet • • • • , • . • , • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 44 Lee Breuer. Media Rex• • . • . • • • • • • . • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 48 Eddie Griffin, Breaking Men's Minds . • • • • . • • • • • • • • ' " • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • " • • • • • • • 48 Wendy Clark, Love Tapes • • ' " • • . • • • • . • • • • • . • • • • . . • • • . • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 60 Police Band, Antidisestablishment Totalitarianism • • . . . • • • • • • • • . • • • • . • . • • • • • • • • • • 64 Elie C. Messinger, Violence to the Brain • • • • • • • • • • • • ' " • • • " • • • • • • ' " • • " • • • • • • • 66 David Cooper, The Invention of Non-Psychiatry • • . • • • , • • . • , . • • • • • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • 66 Martine Barrat, Vicki • . • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • . . • • • • . • • • • • • • • . . • • • • • • • • . • • • • . 74 John Giorno, Grasping at Emptiness • . • ' " • • • • • • • • • • • " • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 82 The Hard Machine • • • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • • • . • • , • • . • , • • • • • • " • • , • • • • ' " • • • • • • " • • 96 Alphonso F. Lingis. Sa vages • • • • • • " • • • • • • • • • • , " • • , • . • • • • • • • • . • , " • • " • • • • . • • 96 Bernard-Henri Levy. The ''Argentine Model" . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Kathy Acker, The Persian Poems • • • • • • • . • • • • • . • • • . • . • • • • • • • . • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • 116 Richard Foreman,14 Things I Tell Myself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . '" ..... 124 Seth Neta, To-Ana-No·Ye (Anorexia Nen'osa) . • • • • • • • • . • • . • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • . • . . 133 Andre Cadere, Boy with a Slick • • • • • , • . • • • • " • • • . . • . • . • • • . • . • . • • • • . • . • • • . • • . • 140 Ulrike Melnhof, Armed Anti-Imperialist Struggle • • • • . • " . • • • • • • . • • • • • • • • " • • " • 140 Gilles Deleuze, politics • • • • • . . • . • • • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • . • • • 154 John Cage, Emptywords • • • " • • • • . • . • • , • • • , . • • ' " . • • • • • • • . • , • • • , ' " • • • • • • • • • • 165 175 ........................ 178 Phil Glass, Interview 178 Jack Smith, Uncle FishoQk and the Sacred Baby Poo-poo ofArt 192 Jean Fran\,ois Lyotard, On (he Strength ofthe Weak." 204 Douglas Dunn. Interview 204 Pat Steir . • • • . • • • . . • • . • • • . • • • • , • • • , . " . , . • • • • • . . • . • . . • • • , • • • • • • • • • • . " Jean-Jacques Abrahams, Fuck the Talkies • • . . . . . . . . . " • • . . • • • • • . • . " . , • • • • , " • . • • • • • , • • • ' " . , • • • , ' " • • • . • • • • • • . • • • • . . • . • . • • . • • . • • • • • . . . • . • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . . • • • • . • • " • • • • , • • , • • . • • • • • • • • • " • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . Back IssueslF'orthcoming • . • • " . • • • • . • • • • ' " • • . " . , ' " • . • " • . " • • • • • • • • • , • • • • 220 Credits for Visuals • • • • • • . . • . • • • • • . • • • . . . • • • • . . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • 221 Michel Foucault The Eye of Power Panopticon, a work published a t the end of the 18th century that has remained largely unknown, nevertheless in­ spired you to term it "an event in Ihe history oj the human mind", "0 revolu­ tionary discovery in the order of politics". And you described Bentham, a n Englishjurist, a s "the Fourr ier ofa police society", I This is all very mysterious for us, but as for you, how did you encounter the Panopticon? Jean·Pierre Barou: Jeremy Bentham's Michel Foucault: It was while studying the origins of clinical medicine. I was considering a study on hospital architecture in the second half of the 18th cen­ tury. at the time of the major reform of medical institutions. I wanted to know how medical observation, the observing gaze of the clinician (fe regard mMical), became institutionalized; how it was effectivelY inscribed within social space; how the new hospital structure was at one and the same time the effect of a new type of perception (regard) and its support. And I came to realize, while examining the different architectural projects that resulted from the second fire at the Hotel-Dieu in 1772, to what extent the problem of the total visibility of bodies, of individuals and of things, before a centralized eyesight (regard). had been one of the most constant guiding principles. In the case of hospitals, this problem raised yet another difficulty: one had to avoid contacts, contagions, proximities and overcrowding at the same time as insur­ ing proper ventilation and the circulation of air: the problem was to divide space and leave it open, in order to insure a form of surveillance at once global and individualizing, while carefully separating the individuals under surveil­ lance. For quite some time I believed these problems to be particular to 18th century medicine and its beliefs. Later, while studying the problems of penal law, I became aware that all the major projects for the reorganization of prisons (projects that date, incidental­ ly, from slightly later, from the first half of the 19th century) took up the same theme, but almost always in reference to Jeremy Bentham. There were few texts or projects concerning prisons where Bentham's "device", the "panop­ ticon" , did not appear. The principle resorted to is a simple one: on the periphery runs a building in the shape of a ring; in the center of the ring stands a tower pierced by large windows that face the inside waH of the fing; the outer building is divided into celis, each of which has two windows: one corresponding to the tower's win� dows, facing into the cell; the other, facing outside, thereby enabling light to traverse the entire cell. One then needs only to place a guard in the central 7 tower, and to lock into each cell a mad. sick or condemned person, a worker or a pupiL Owing to the back-lighting effect, onc can thus make out the small captive silhouettes in the cells. In summary, the principle of the dark cell is re­ versed: bright light and the guard's observing gaze arc found to impound bet­ ter than the shadows which in fact protected. One is already struck by the fact that the same concern existed well before Bentham. It seems that one of the first models of this form of isolating visi­ bility was instituted in the Military Academy of Paris in 1751, with respect to the dormitories. Each Of the pupils was to have a windowed liell where he could De seen all night long without any possible contact with his fellow· students or even the domestic help. In addition there was a very complicated mechanism whose sole purpose was to enable the barber to comb each of the residents without touching him physically: the pupil's head extended from a kind of skylight with the body on the other side of the glass partition, allow­ ing a clear view of the entire process. Bentham told how it was his brother who first had the idea of the panopticon whiie visiting the Military Academy. The theme was, in any ca!le, clearly in the air at this time. Claude-Nicolas Ledoux's constructions, niost notably the salt-mine he had organized at Arc­ et-Senans, tended to employ the same visibility effect, but with one important addition, namely, that there be a central point that would serve as the seat of the exercise of power as well as the place for recording observations and gain­ ing knOWledge. While the idea of the panopticon preceded Bentham, it was nevertheless he who actually formulated it. The very word panoptictJn can be considered crucial. for it designates a comprehensive principle. Berttham's conception was therefore more than a mere architectural figure meaht to re­ solve a specific problem such as that raised by prisons or schools or hospitals. Bentham himself proclaims the panopticon to be a "revolutionary discov­ ery". It wa!.' therefore Bentham who proposed a solution to the problem faced by doctors, penologists, industrialists and educators: he discovered the tech­ nology of power necessary to resolve problems of surveillance. It is important to note that Bentham considered his optical procedure to be the major inno­ vation for the easy, effective exercise of power. As a matter of fact, this innovation has been utilized widely since the end of the 18th century. But the procedures of power resorted to in modern societies are far more numerous and diverse and rich. It would be false to state that the principle of visibility has dominated the whole technology of power since the 19th century. Michelle Perrot: WluJt might be said, incidentally, about architecture as a mode of political organization? For everything is spatial, not only mentally but also materially, in this form of 18th century thought. In my opinion architecture, at the end of the 18th century, begins to concern itself closely with problems of popUlation, health and urbanism. Be­ fore that time, the art of constructing responded firstly to the need to make power, divinity and force manifest. The palace and the chutch constituted the two major architectural forms, to which we must add fortresses. One mani­ fested one's might, one manifested the sovereign, one manifested God. Archi­ tecture developed for a long while according to these requirements. Now, at the end of the 18th century, new problems arc posed: the arrangement of space is to be utilized for political and economic ends. A specific form of architecture arises during this period. Philippe Aries has written some very important things on the subject of the home which, according to him, remains an undifferentiated space until the 18th century. There are rooms that can be llsed interchangeably for sleeping, eating Or re­ ceiving guests. Then, little by little, space becomes specified and functional. A perfect illustration can be found in the development of working-class housing projects in the years 1830-1870, The working family will be situated; a type of Foucault: 8 morality will be prescribed for it by assigning it a living space (a room serving as kitchen and dining room), the parents' bedroom (the place of procreation), and the children's bedroom. Sometimes, in the most favorable of situations, there will be a boy's room and a girl's room. A whole "history of spaces" could be written, that would at the same time be a "history of the forms of power," from the major strategies of geopolitics to the tactics of housing, institutional architecture. classroom or hospital organization, by way of all the political and economic implantations. It is surprising how long it took for the problem of spaces to be viewed as an historical and political problem. For a long time space was either referred to "nature"-to what was given, the first determining factor-or to "physical geography"; it was referred to a kind of "prehistoric" layer. Or it was conceived as dwellings or the growth of a people, a culture, a language or a State. In short, space was analyzed either as the ground on which people lived or the area in which they existed; all that mattered were foundations and frontiers. The work of the historians Marc Bloch and Fernand Braude! was required in order to develop a history of rural and maritime spaces. This work must be expanded, and we must cease to think that space merely predetermines a particular history which in return reorganizes it through its own sedimentation. Spatial arrangements are also political and economic forms to be studied in detail. I will mention only one of the reasons why a certain negligence regarding 9 spaces has been prevalent for so long, and this concerns the discourse at' phil­ osophers. At the precise moment when a serious-minded politics of spaces was developing (at the end of the 18th century), the new attainments of theoretical and experimental physics removed philosophy's privileged right to speak about the world, the cosmos, space, be it finite or infinite. This double taking over of space by a political technology and a scientific practice forced philosophY into a problematic of time. From Kant on it is time that occupies the philosopher's reflection, in Hegel. Bergson and Heidegger for example. A correlative disqualification of space appears in the human understanding. I recall having spokc;n some ten years ago of these problems linked to a politics of spaces and someone remarked that it was very reactionary to insist so much on space, that life and progress must be measured in terms of time and be­ coming. It must be added that this reproach came from a psychologist: here we see the truth and the shame of 19th century philosophy. Perrot: We might perhaps mention in passing the importance of the notion of sexuality in this context. You noted this in the case of the surveillance of ca­ dets and, there again, the same problem surfaces with respect to the working­ class family. The notion of sexuality is fundamental, isn ', it? Foucault: Absolutely. In these themes of surveillance, and especially school surveillance, the controls of sexuality are inscribed directly in the architectural design. In the case of the Military Academy, the struggle against homo­ sexuality and masturbation is written on the wans. Perrot: As for as architecture is concerned doesn 't it seem to you that people like doctors, whose social involvement is considerable at the end of (he 18th century, played in a sense the role of spatial "arrangers"? This L� where social hygiene is born; in the name of cleanliness and health, (he location of people is controlled. And with the rebirth of hippocratic medicine, doctors are among those most sensitized to problems of environment, milieu, tempera­ ture, etc., which were already givens in John Howard's investigation into the Slate of prisons. 1 Foucault: Doctors were indeed partially specialists of space. They posed four fundamental problems: the problem of locations (regional climates, the na­ ture of the soil, humidity and aridity: they applied the term "constitution" to this combination of local determinants and seasonal variations that favor, a t a given moment, a particular type o f illness); the problem o f coexistence (the coexistence of people among themselves, where it is a question of the density or proximity of populations; the coexistence of people and things, where it is a matter of sufficient water, .sewage and the free circulation of air; or the co­ existence of humans and animals, where it is a matter of slaughter-houses and cattle-sheds; and finally, the coexistence of the living and the dead, where the matter of cemeteries arises); the problem of housing (habitat, urbanism); and the problem of displacements (the migration of people, the spreading of illnesses), Doctors and military men were the prime administrators of collec­ tive space. But the military thought essentially in terms of the space of "military campai�ns" (and therefore of "passing through") and of fortifica­ tions. Doctors, (or their part, thought above all in terms of the space of housing and cities. I cannot recall who it was that sought the major stages of sociological thought in Montesquieu and Auguste Comte, which is a very un­ informed approach. For sociological knowledge is formed, rather, within practices such as that of doctors. I n this context Guepin, at the very beginning of the 19th century, wrote a marvelous analysis of the city of Nantes. The intervention of doctors was indeed of such crucial importance at this particular time because they were moved by a whole constellation of new 10 political and economic problems, which accounts for the importance of demographic facts. Now Bentham, like his contemporaries, encountered the problem of the ac­ cumulation of people. But whereas economists posed the problem in terms of wealth (population-as-wealth, since it is manpower, the source of economic activity and consumption; and population-as-poverty, when it is in excess or idle), Bentham posed it in terms of power: population as the target of the re­ lations of domination. I think it could be said that the power mechanisms at play in an administrative monarchy as developed even as it was in France, were characterized by rather large gaps: this form of power constituted a glo­ bal system based on chance where many elements were unaccpunted for, a system that didn't enter into details, that exercised its controls' over inter­ dependent groups and that made use of the method of example (as is clear in the fiscal measures or tpe eriminal justice system in question), and therefore had a low "resolutiol1", as they say in photography. Thj� form of power was incapable of practicing an exhaustive and individuating analysis of the social body. Now, the economic mutations of the 18th century made it necessary for the effects of power to circulate through finer and finer channels, reaching individuals, their bodies, their gestures, every one of their daily activities. Power was to be as effectively exercised over a multiplicity of people as if it were over one individual. Perrot: The demographic thrusts of the 18th century undoubtedly contributed to the development oj this form of power. Barou: It is therefore quite surprising to learn tha t (he French Revolution, through people like La Fayette, favorably welcomed the project of the panopiicon. One will recall tha t Benthtlm was made a " Citizen of France" in 1791 thanks to him. Foucault: To my mind Bentham is the complementary to Rousseau, For what is in fact the Rousseauian dream that captivated the revolutionary era, if not that of a transparent society, at once visible and legible in every one of its parts; a society where there were no longer any zones of obscurity arranged by the privileges of royal power or the prerogatives of a given body, or by disorder; where each man, from his own position, could see the whole of society; where hearts communicated directly and observations were carried out freely, and where everyman's opinions reigned supreme. Jean Starobinski made some very interesting c�mments on this subject in La Transparence et f 'Obstacle and in L '1nvention de fa Liberte . Bentham is at once close to this Rousseauian notion, and the complete opposite. He poses the problem of visi­ bility, but in his conception visibility is organized completely around a domi­ nating and observing gaze. He initiates the project of a universal visibility that would function on behalf of a rigorous and meticulous form of power. In this sense one sees that the technical idea of a form of power that is "always and everywhere observant", which is Bentham's obsession, is connected to the Rousseauian theme, which in a sense constitutes the Revolution's lyricism: the two themes combine and the combination works-Bentham's obsession and Rousseau's lyricism. Perrot: What about this quote from the Panopticon: "Each comrade becomes a guardian?" Foucault: Rousseau would probably have said the opposite: that each guardian must be a comrade. In L 'E mile, for example, Emile's tutor is a guardian, but he must also be a friend. Barou: The French Revolution did not interpret Bentham 's project a� we do today; it even perceived humanitarian a ims in this project. }'oucault: Precisely. When the Revolution examines the possibilities for a new form of justice, it asks what is to be its mainspring. The answer is public opinion. The Revolution's problem once again was not one of insuring that people be punished, but that they could not even act improperly on account of their being submerged in a field of total visibility where the opinion of one's fellow men, their observing gaze, and their discourse would prevent one from doing evil or detrimental deeds. This problem is ever present in the texts written during the Revolution. �errot: The immediate context also played a part oj the Revolution's adoption oj the Panopticon; the problem ojprisons was then a high priority. Since 1770, in England as in France, there was a strong sense oj uneasiness surrounding this issue, which is clear in Howard's investigation oj prisons. Hospitals and prisons are two major topics oj discussion in the Parisian salons and the enlightened circles. It was viewed as scandalous that prisons had become what they were: schools of crime and vice so lacking in decent hygiene as to seriously threaten one's chances of survival. Doctors began to talk about the degeneration of bodies in such places. With the coming of the Revolution, the bourgeoisie in turn undertook an investigation on a European scale. A certain Duquesnoy was entrusted with the task of reporting on the "establishments ofhumanity", a term designating hospitals as well as prisons. Foucault: A definite fear prevailed during the second half of the 18th century: the fear of a dark space, of a screen of obscurity obstructing the clear visibility of things, of people and of truths. It became imperative to dissolve the elements of darkness that were opposed to light, to demolish all of society's sombre spaces, those dark rooms where arbitrary political rule foments, as well as the whims of a monarch, religious superstitions, tyrants' and priests' plots, illusions of ignorance and epidemics. From even before the Revolution, castles, hospitals, charnel houses, prisons and convents gave rise to a sometimes over-valued distrust or hatred; it was felt that the new political and moral order could not be instituted until such places were abolished. The novels of terror, during the period of the Revolution, developed a whole fan­ ciful account of the high protective walls, the shadows, the hiding-places and dungeons that shield, in a significant complicity, robbers and aristocrats, monks and traitors. Ann Radcliffe's sceneries are always mountains, forests, caverns, deteriorating castles, convents whose obscurity and silence instill fear. Now, these imaginary spaces are in a sense the "counter-figure" of the transparency and visibility that the new order hoped to establish. The reign of "opinion" invoked so frequently during thi<; period is a mode of functioning where power is to be excercised on the sale basis of things known and people seen by a kind of immediate observing gaze that is at once collective and anonymous. A form of power whose primum mobile is public opinion could hardly tolerate regions of darkness. Bentham's project excited such a great interest because it provided the formula, applicable in a wide variety of do­ mains. for a form of power that operates by means of transparency", a SUbjugation through a process of "bringing to light". The panopticon utilizes to a certain extent the form of the "castle" (a dungeon surrounded by high protective walls) to paradoxically create a space of detailed legibility. Baron: The Age of Enlightenment would also have liked to see the sombre areas within man abolished. :Foucaul1: Absolutely. Perrot: One is also struck by the techniques ofpower witkin the panopticon itse{f. Essentially there is the observing gaze, and also speech, for there are those well known steel tubes that link the principal inspector to each of the cells in which we can find not one prisoner, according to Bentham, but small groups ofprisoners. What is very striking in Bentham's text is the importance attributed to dissuasion: as he puts it, "one must constantly be under the eyes of an inspector; this results in a foss of the capacity to do evil and almost even the thought of wanting to. This is one of the major preoccupations of the Revolution: to keep peoplefrom doing evil, to make them refrain from even wanting to: not being able and not wanting to do evil. H }'oucault: Two different things are involved here: the observing gaze, the act of observation on the one hand, and internalization on the other. And doesn't this amount to the problem of the cost of power? Power is not exercised without it costing something. There is Obviously the economic cost, which Bentham discusses: "How many guardians will be needed?", How much will the machine cost?" But there is also the specifically political cost. If power is exercised too violently, there is the risk of generating revolts; or if the intervention is too discontinuous, there is the risk of the development of resistance and disobedience, phenomena of great political cost. This is how monarchic power functioned. The judicial apparatus, for example, arrested only a ridiculously small proportion of criminals; from which the fact was deduced that if the punishment was to instill fear in those present, it must be glaring. Monarchic power was therefore violent and utilized spectaculacex­ amples to insure a continuous exercise of power. To this conception of power the new theoreticians of the 18th century retort: this power is too costly for too few results. There are great expenditures of violence of no exemplary value; one is even forced to multiply the violence and, by that very fact. to multiply the revolts, Perrot: Which is what happened during the riots surrounding the executions on the scaffold. Foucault: On the other hand there is a form of observation that requires very little in the way of expenditures. No need for arms, physical violence, or material restraints. Rather there is an observing gaze that watches over people and that each individual, due to the fact that he feels it weighing on him, finally internalizes to the point where he observes himself: everyone in this way exercises surveillance over and against himself. This is an ingenious formula: a continuous form of power at practically no cost! When Bentham 13 pronounces his discovery of this form of Dower. he views it as a "revolutionary discovery in the order of politics", a formula that is exactly the reverse of monarchic power. As a matter of fact, within the techniques of power developed in modern times, observation has had a major importance but, as I said earlier. it is far from being the only or even the principal instrumentation put into practice. Perrot: It seems, from what you have just said, that Bentham posed the problem ojpower essentially in terms of small groups. Why? Did he consider that the part is already the whole, that if one succeeds on the level ofgroups this can be extended t o include society as a whole? O r is it that society as a whole and power at that level were not yet grasped in their specificity at that time? Foucault: The whole problem in this form of power is to avoid stumbling blocks and interruptions similar to the obstacles presented in the Ancien Regime by the established bodies, the privileges of certain categories, from the clergy to the trade guilds by way of the body of magistrates, The bourgeoisie was perfectly aware that new legislation or a new Constitution were not enough to guarantee its hegemony, A new technology had to be in­ vented that would insure the free-flow of the effects of power within the entire social body and on the most minute of levels, And in this area the bourgeoisie not only achieved a political revolution, but also managed to establish a form of social hegemony that it has never relinquished since, This explains why all of these inventions were so important, and why Bentham was surely among the most typical inventors of power technologies. Barou: It is nevertheless not immediately clear whether space organized as Bentham advocated could profit anyone, be it only those who occupied the central tower or who came t o visit The reader of Bentham's proposals feels as if he were in the presence of an infernal world from which there is no escape, neither for those who are being watched, nor for those who are observing. Foucault: Such is perhaps the most diabolical aspect of the idea and of all the applications it brought about. In this form of management, power isn't total­ ly entrusted to someone who would exercise it alone, over others, in an abso­ lute fashion; rather this machine is one in which everyone is caught, those who exercise the power as well as those who are subjected to it. It seems to me this is the major characteristic of the new societies established in the 19th century, Power is no longer substantially identified with a particular individ­ ual who possesses it or exercises it due to his social position, Power becomes a machinery controlled by no one, Everyone in this machine obviously occupies a different place; certain places are more important than others and enable those who occupy them to produce effects of supremacy, insuring a class domination to the very extent that they dissociate political power from individual power, Perrot: The operation of the panopticon is somewhat contradictory from this paint of view. There is the principal inspector who keeps watch from a central tower. But he also controls his inferiors, the guards, in whom he has no confi­ dence. He sometimes speaks rather distrustfully of them, even though they are supposed to be close to him. Doesn't this constitute an aristocratic form ofthought! But it must also be recalled that supervision represented a crudal problem for industrial society, Finding foremen and engineers capable of regimenting and supervising the factories was no easy task for management. FOllcault: This problem was enormous, as is clear in the 'case of the 18th century army when it was necessary to establish a corps of "low-ranking" 14 officers competent enough to supervise the tfOUpS effectively during what were often very difficult tactical maneuvers, all the more difficult as the rifle had just been perfected. Movement�, displacements and formations of troops, as well as marches required this sort of disciplinary personnel. Work¥ places posed the same problem in their own right. as did school, with its head masters, teachers, and disciplinarians. The Church was then one of the rare social bodies where such competent small corps of disciplinarians existed. The not too literate, but not too ignorant monk and the curate joined forces against children when it became necessary to school hundreds of thousands of children. The State did not provide itself with similar small corps until much later, as was also the case with respect to hospitals. It was not so long ago that the supervisory personnel of hospitals was still constituted in large part by nuns. Perrot; These very nuns played a considerable part in the creation of afemale labor force, in the well known 19th century internships where a female staff lived and worked under the superV/:,-ion of nuns specially trained to exercise factory discipline. The panopticon is also preoccupied with these issues as is apparent when it deals with the principal jn�'Pector's surveillance of the supervising staff and, through the control tower's windows, his surveillance of everyone, an un­ interrupted succession of observations that call to mind the dictum: "each comrade becomes a guardian". We finally reach a point of vertigo in the presence of an invention no longer mastered by its creator. And it is Bentham who, in the beginning, wants to place confidence in a unique, centralform of power. Who did he plan to put in the tower? The eye of God? Yet God is barely present in his texts, for religion only plays a utilitarian part. So who is in the tower? In the lasl analysis it must be admitted that Bentham himself is not too clear about who should be entrusted with this power. Foucault: He cannot have confidence in anyone in that no person can, nor must be a source of power and justice like the king in the former system. In the theory of the monarchy it was implicit that one owed allegiance to the king. By his very existence, willed by God, the king was the source of justice, law and authority. Power in the person of the king could only be good; a bad king was equivalent to an historical accident or to a punishment inflicted by the absolutely good sovereign, God. Whereas one cannot have confidence in anyone if power and authority are arranged as a complex machine and where an individual's place, and not his nature, is the determining factor. If the machine were such that someone stood outside it or had the sole responsibility for its management, power would be identified whh a person and one would return to the monarchic system of power. In the Panopticon, everyone is watched, according to his position within the system, by all of the others or by certain others; here we are in the presence of an apparatus of distrust that is total and mobile, since there 1$ no absolute point. A certain sum of malevo­ lence was required for the perfection of surveillance. Barou: A diabolical machine, as you said, that spares no one. Such is the image of power today. But, according to you, how did we get to this point? What sort of "will" was involved, and whose? Foucault: The question of power is greatly impoverished if posed solely in terms of legislation, or the Constitution, or the State, the State apparatus. Power is much more complicated, much more diffuse and dense than a set of laws or a State apparatus. One cannot understand the development of the productive forces of capitalism, nor even conceive of their technological development, if the apparatuses of power are not taken into consideration. For example, take the case of the division of labor in the major work-places of the 18th century; how would this distribution of tasks have been achieved had there not been a new distribution of power on the very level of the pro� ductive forces? Likewise for the modern army: it was not enough to possess new types of armaments or another style of recruitment: this new form of power called discipline was also required, with its hierarchies, its commands, its inspections, its exercises, its conditionings, its drills. Without this the army such as it had functioned since the 1 7th century would never have existed. Baron: There is nevertheless an individual or a group of individuals who provide the impetus for this disciplinary system, or isn 'f t here? Foucault: A distinction must be made. It is clear in the organization of an army or a work-place, or a given institution that the network of power adopts a pyramidal form. There is therefore a summit. But even in a simple case, this "summit" is not the "source" or the "principle" from which the totality of power derives as from a focal point (such as the monarch's throne). The summit and the lower elements of the hierarchy coexist within a relationship of reciprocal support and conditioning: they "hold together" (power as a mutual and indefinite "extortion"). But if what you are asking is whether the ....... C;.clII/13 on ca,d H 422 TV C.m..... enel""".... toek<tbte, weal"". proof. pteule. Four p""nd.> """"5 m"","y and P s by nOI having 10 U50 a heavy duty pan and !ile 40> Stlll .hade, 22"XSO>XS". Ivailable wlIh light weight, hOlal0r and Ian. You can hll I! w1lh a club. under S100.00 , Sign. .. PhOM Wi,e 0,,11e81 ... Circle • 114 "" catd feol on rl&dic$\Od IwOrted 3000 foe! in" llee"... 'equi,"". Rf Vi""" GoY! Agency, illO"" e••. p'if. of $"gh\ no Tr.".mi"lon fCC lot URVEILLANCE "'���,:::�::-' TV C.mera Iool<;"ng 0U1 0' eye. Exit O,,� 3'· wlde. 15" fang, 9" high Ale.m box_ ADT I)'p<t, 114 hole "to .....'. Auxllle.-y Ughl Fi�tu.a . TV lined into YOU", ill OUrO. lIecn"ad Into w n. TV in wa�:r' wide, 1/40> hol� to "s"e. MANIKIN. . TV 3000 VldQO T.anoml."lon T v Com"", Induotrlal SUfVuman�a File Cabl""t· in.ide plata. TV tn. Into run cable Fluo.asunt fiK�u'e · �!� �:n: :,",n CirCle 117 On M.d drawer, remove rod and ou\ ,ea, TV with 01 cabinet right anllta mounted In yOOt fixtu," 0< ""!S. Vll!wing atM limo Is 10 .Id<!. De.k C�lculato." TV IOG.lod m base looking outside. 16 new technology of power has its historical roots in an individual or in a group of specific individuals who would, as it were, have decided to apply this technology in their own interests and in order to shape the social body according to their,� esigns. then I would have to say no. These tactics were invented and organized according to local conditions and particular urgencies. They were designed piece by piece before a class strategy solidified them into vast and coherent totalities, It must also be noted that these totali­ ties do not consist in a homogenization but rather in a complex interplay of support among the different mechanisms of power which are, themselves, nonetheless quite specific. Thus it is that at the present time the interplay be­ tween the family, medicine, psychiatry, psychoanalysis. the school, and the judicial system, in the case of children, does not homogenize these different agencies, but establishes connections, referrals. compiementarities and deter­ minations that presuppose that each one of them maintains, to a certain extent, its own modalities. Perrot: You have protestedagainst the idea of power as a superstructure, but not against the idea that this power is in a sense consubstantial to the develop­ ment of the productive forces, of which it is a part. Foucault: Correct. And power is constantly being transformed along with the productive forces. The Panopticon was a utopian program. But already in Bentham's time the theme of a spatializing, observing, immobilizing-Le. disciplinary-power was in fact outflanked by much more subtle mechanisms allowing for the regulation of population phenomena, the control of their oscillations, and compensation for their irregularities. Bentham is "anti­ quated" insofar as he attaches so much importance to observation; he is completely modern when he stresses the importance of the techniques of power in our societies. Perrot: There is therefore no global State; rather there is the emergence of micro-societies, microcosms. Barou: Is the distribution offorces in the Panop ticon a ttributable to indus­ trial society, or should we consider capitalist society to be responsible for this form of power? Foucault: Industrial or capitalist society? I don't know what to answer, except perhaps that these forms of power are also present in socialist societies: the transference was immediate. But on this point, I would prefer to let the historian among us intervene in my place. Perrot: It is true tha t (he accumulation of capital was accomplished by a n industrial technology a n d by the erection ofa n e ntire apparatus ofpower. But it is also true tha t a similar process can be found in the Soviet socialist society. In certain respects, Stalinism a lso corresponds (0 a period ofaccumulation of capital and to the establishment of a strong form of power. Barou: The notion of profit comes to mind here, which indica tes how valuable some can find Bentham's inhuman machine. Foucault: Obviously! We would have to share the rather naive optimism of 19th century "dandies" to think that the bourgeoisie is stupid. On the con­ trary, we must take into account its master strokes, among which, precisely, there is the fact that it succeeded in constructing machines of power that helped in establishing circuits of profit which in turn reinforce and modify the mechanisms of power in a constantly moving and circular fashion. Feudal power, which functioned above all by means of capital levies and expendi­ tures, drained itself. Bourgeois power perpetuates itself not by conservation, but by successive transformations, which accounts for the fact that its arrangement is not inscribed within history as is the feudal arrangement. 17 Which also accounts for its precariousness as well as its inventive resiliency. This explains, finally, how the possibility of its downfall as well as the possibi­ lity of Revolution have from the beginning been an intimate part of its history. Perrot: Bentham assigns an important place for work, and keeps coming back to it. This is due to the fact that the techniques of power were invented to respond to the requirements of production, in the largest sense of the term (e.g. "producing" a destruction, as in the case of the army). Foucault: Darou: May I mention in passing that when you speak of "work" in your books. this rarely refers to productive labor . Foucault: This is because I have been mainly preoccupied with people placed outside the circuits of productive labor: the mad, the sick. prisoners, and today, children. Work for them, such as they are supposed to accomplish it, is above all valued for its disciplinary effects. Barou: Isn '[ work always a form of drill or pacification? Foucault: Of course, the triple function of work is alway.s present: the pro­ ductive function, the symbolic function and the training, or disciplinary func­ tion. The productive function is perceptibly zero for the categories with which 1 am concerned, whereas the symbolic and disciplinary functions are quite important. But in most instances the three components coexist. Perrot: Bentham, in any case, strikes me as very self-confident concerning the penetrating power of observation. One feels in fact that he doesn't fully appreciate the degree of opacity and resistance of the material that is to be corrected and reintegrated into society, namely, the prisoners. Doesn 't Bentham's panopticon share in the illusion of power to a certain extent? It is the illusion shared by practicaliy all of the 1 8th century reformers who invested public opinion with considerable power. Public opinion had to be COfrect since it was the immediate conscience of the entire social body; these reformers really believed people would become virtuous owing to their being observed. Public opinion represented a spontaneous reactualization of the social contract. They failed to recognize the real con­ ditions of public opinion , the "media", i.e. a materiality caught in the mechanisms of economy and power in the forms of the press, publishing, and then films and television. f'oucault: Perrot: When you say that they disregarded the media you mean they failed to appreciate their importance for them. They also failed to understand that the media would necessarily be controlled by economic and political interests. They did not perceive the material and economic components of public opinion. They thought that public opinion would be just by its very nature, that it would spread by itself, and constitute a kind of democratic surveil!ance. It was essentially journalism -a crucial innovation of the 19th century-that manifested the utopian char­ acteristics of this entire politics of observation. FOllcault: Perrot: Thinkers generally miscalculate the difficulties they will encounter in trying to make their system "take hold"; they are not aware that there will always be loopholes and that resistances will alwaysplay a part. In the domain ofprisons, inmates have not been passive people; and yet Bentham leads us to believe quite the opposite. Penal discourse itself unfolds as if it concerned no one in particular, except perhaps a tabula rasa in the form ofpeople to be re­ habilitated and then thrust back into the circuits of production. In reality there is a material, the inmates, who resist in a formidable manner. The same 18 could also be said of Taylorism, the extraordinary invention of an engineer who wanted to fight against loafing, against everything Ihat downs production. But we might finally ask whether Taylorism ever really worked? Foucault: Another element does indeed contribute to the unreal liide of Bentham's project: people's effective capacity to resist, studied so carefully by you, Michelle Perrot. How did people in workshops and housing projects resist the system of continual surveillance and recording of their activities? Were they aware of the compulsive, subjugating, unbearable nature of this surveillance, or did they accept it as natural? In brief, were there revolts against the observing gaze of power? Perrot: Yes there were. The repugnance workers had to living in housing projects was an obvious fact. These projects were failures for quite a long while, as was the compulsory distribution of time, also present throughout the panopticon. Thefactory and its time schedules instigated a passive resistance, expressed by the workers' staying home. Witness the extraordinary story of the 19th century "Holy Monday", a day of! invented by the workers in order to get out and relax every week. There were multiplefor' ms ofresl:�tance (0 the industrial system, so many, in fact. that in the beginning management had to back of! Another example is found in the systems of micro-powers which were not instituted immediately either. This type ofsurveillance and super­ vision wasfirs! ofall developed in the mechanized sectors composed mainly of women and children, hence ofpeople used to obeying; women used to obeying husbands and children used to obeying their parents. But in the "male" sec­ (ors such as the iron-works, the situation was quite different. Management did nol succeed in installing its surveillance system immediately: during the first half of the 19th century it had to delegate its powers; it worked oul contracts with the teams of workers through the foremen, who were often (he most qualified workers or those with most seniority. A veritable counter-power developed among the professional workers, which sometimes had two edges: one directed against the management, in defense of the workers ' community, and the other against the workers themselves insofar as the foreman managed to oppress his apprentices and comrades. The workers' forms of counter­ power continued to exist until management learned how to mechanize the functions that escaped it; it was then able to abolish the professional workers' power. There are numerous examples of this: in the rolling mills the shop steward had the means at his disposal 10 resist the boss until the day when 19 quasi-automated machines were installed. Thermal control, to cite only one instance, was substitutedjor the workers' sight and one could now determine whether the material was at the right temperature simply by reading a thermometer. Foucault: This being the case, one must analyze the constellation of resis­ tances to the panopticon in terms of tactics and strategies and bear in mind that each offensive on one level serves to support a counter-offensive on another level. The analysis of machines of power does not seek to demonstrate that power is both anonymous and always victorious. Rather we must locate the positions and the modes of action of everyone involved as well as the various possibilities for resisting and launching counter�attacks. Barou: You speak like a strategist, of battles, actions and reactions, offen� sives and counter�offensives. Are resistances to power essentially physical in nature according to you? What then becomes of the content oj the struggles and the a,spirations they express? Foucault: This is in fact a very important theoretical and methodological question, One thing in particular strikes me: certain political discourses make constant use of a vocabulary of the relations of forces. "Struggle" is a word that comes up most frequently. Now, it secms to me that onc sometimes rc­ fuses to see the consequences of such a vocabulary or even to consider the problem it raises: namely, must we analyze these "struggles" as the vicissitudes of a war, must they be deciphered according to a strategical, tactical grid, yes or no? Is the relationship of forces in the order of politics a relationship of war? I personally am not prepared to respond categorically with a yes or a no. It only seems to me at this point that the pure and simple affirmation of a "struggle" cannot be viewed as a final explanation in an analysis of power relationships. This theme of the struggle is only functional if it is concretely established in each case who is struggling, for what reasons, how the struggle is developing, in what locations, with what instruments and according to what sort of rationality. In other words, if one wishes to take seriously the notion that struggle is at the heart of the relationships of power, one must realize that the nice, old "logic" of contradictions is far from sufficient to determine the real processes involved. Perrot:Put another way, and getting back to the panopticon, Bentham not only projects a utopian society, but also describes an existing society. }'oucault: He describes, within the utopia of a general system, particular mechanisms that really exist. Perrot: Then does it make sense for the inmates to take over the observation tower? Foucault: Yes, provided that this is not the end of the operation. Do you believe that things would be much better if. the inmates seized control of the panopticon and occupied the tower, rather than the guards? Translated by Mark Seem "L'Oeil du pouvoir" was published in Jeremy Bentham's Belfond, 1. 1977. Le Panoptique, Pierre Thus described in Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, Pantheon Books, 1978. 2. John Howard made the results of this investigation public in his study: The State oj the Prisons in England and Wales, with Preliminary Observations and an Account oj some Foreign Prisons and Hospita/s, 1777. Robert Wilson interview Sylvar. Latrlng.r: How did you arrive af a theatre which Is not primarily based upon longuoge? Robert Wilson: I never liked the theofr•. I wasn't In'.rested In the narrative or the psychology. I preferrlHl the bollet becau,. It was architectural-my own hock­ ground Is In painting and archl· tectur•. I liked Balonehl". ond Mere. Cunningham bllcaus. I didn't have to bother about plot or meaning. I could Ius' look at designs and patterns-thot seemed enough. Ther. Is a dan­ cer her., another dancer there, anoth",r four on this .Ide, e'ght on the oth.r, then sixteen ... I wond.red If the theatre CQuid do the some things as the dance and lust b. an arch itectural arrange­ ment In time and space. So I flnt made ploys that were primarily visual. I started working w!th dlf· ferenf pictures that were arranged in a certain way. Later I added words, buf words weren't used to tell a story. They were used more architecturally: for the length of the word or the sen' tenee, for their sound. They were constructed like musk. For Instance, when Ludnda speaks in Einstein on 'he Beach, what matters Is the sound of her volee, the potterns of her volee. In A Lefter to Queen Victoria, I was mainly Interested In the con­ trast between George's voice and Jim Neu's, between Stephan's voice and Scotty's, between Sheryl's volee and Cindy'S. I wanted to put together these dlHe,ent rhythms. these Fram;ois Peraldi A Schizo and the Instifution (a non-story) Let's see first what this title does not mean, then we shall proceed to see what has not happened to our schizo, then the extraordinary results on the institu� tion, and the final interdiction. The title then: A schizo. Schizophrenia is not an illness, I and thus, it cannot be cured, for only illnesses can sometimes be cured. This statement is our premise, very close to Thomas Szasz's/ in this particular case. What is it then? It is not abnormal behavior either, for not having yet found solid epistemological grounds for the mean­ ing of "normal" we have decided to disregard this category as well as its opposite term: "abnormality". It keeps us at least from entering into this horrifying world of the behavioral sciences which, to us, is noth­ ing but the most extraordinarily powerful and danger­ OilS system of repression ever invented, because it has never been able to state dearly the political, economic and ideological grounds on which it has built its Skin­ ner boxes of torture. Shall we say that schizophrenia is a process? And if so then, what kind of process? I'd venture to say that it appears to me as an affirm­ ative process in the negative. Something like: "1 am and I remain whatever yOll do not want me to be". Let's understand it as an affirmation against. I have good reasons for not saying that it is a nega­ tive process. Freud has demonstrated one or two things; one of the most interesting is that when Being and Thinking are structured according to a certain pat­ tern (afterwards taken as a model of normality) they are based on a fundamental activity which he calls Verneinung: Negation, or "Denegation" as we say in French. But this negation presupposes a more funda­ mental principle: the principle of identity. Listen to 21 Freud: What is bad, what is alien to the ego, and what is external are, to begin with, identicaL' This has nothing to do with the schizophrenic proc­ ess, which appears as a primarily affirmative process to be apprehended-but can wei-in the realm of dif­ ference or, should I say, using a Heideggerian term, in the realm of appropriation' from which the principle of identity stems. But this discourse is becoming hor­ ribly metaphysical. Let's drop it. Let's come back to the word schizo and add a word. We do not use the word Schizo as a label of seriousness or quality that would be the proof that I am an up-to­ date psychoanalyst daring to face the dark and fright� cning forces of the unknown, "a la pointe" of a pseudo modern psycho-something. And I am very well aware of the dangers, as well as the great advantages in using such a word. Let me give you an example of the advantages, in the institution I am going to talk about. Let's cal! it by its name: Lavans (it's in a remote part of France called the Jura known for its exquisite white wine and good food, which has to do with what we were able to achieve). In Lavans, we received from the State Social Services a certain amount of money daily per patient. That's how we functioned. When we could prove that more than 350Ju of the children we had in our care were SChizophrenic, the allowance given daily for each child was augmented by 72%. A good deal! Don't you think? Shall I say something that would ring pro­ foundly true in certain psycho-somethings. . . Schizo is good money! In order perhaps not to disagree with Felix Guattari, I should perhaps call the process I am talking about the psychotic process. Felix refuses to consider-as far as I know-schizophrenia as a process which functions from the beginning against whatever may be attempted to reduce and fit it into the Oedipal structure by what we might call the Family Power Machinery. THE INSTITUTION It is nothing but the socially structured field, place or as we say in France, Ie Lieu, where certain types of Power Machinery shape an object with the help of semi-conscious agents and through a medium which is the discourse in its function of "formation" (whatever word you want to put before formation, in-formation, de-formation or re-formation . .). Le lieu-·the field-is an open institution, at least without wans and without drugs, both of which, to the schizophrenic, are identical. The object in this case, was a group of 60 children chosen in an age group between l 4 and 20, according to government regulations, in an IQ range between 20 (something like a living turnip) and 65 (politely called: Idiots, or Les Debiles!). different ways of speaking In order to create a vocal effect, I wasn't primarily concerned with the content. At the same time, It Is there. When you listen to MoJ:art, you don't wonder what It means. Yov Ivst listen. I consider what I am doing as a kind of "visual music". Denise Green: Your Interest In architecture as well as your extensive vse of visual props didn't coincide with the minimal· 1st trend of the sl:riies. W: No. The theatre In the sidles wonted to eliminate 19th centvry techniques. They didn't wont to use pointed decors suggesting the torest, or a temple, or a Victorian drawlng.room. This too old-fashioned. was Rouschenberg was pointing a gOCiI and putting it in the middle of the room. You could see It from all sides, from 360 degr.es, Ther. was a show cCilied Arl AgCllns' muslon at the Whitney Museum which was supposed to be the summation of the- arts towards the end of the sixties. I was lust doing a ploy calle-d The King of Spain which had r.ally nothing to do with what they were dOing . It hod to do preclse-Iy with on illusion. I was odually trying to reveal the illusion, the mystery. I WO$ somehow fasci­ nated by two·dimenslonal space, three-dimensional space and the illusion that can b. occredit.d on a box. I liked their formality. The King of Spain Is 0 Vlctorlon drama where giant Catholic kings thirty feet high walk through the drawing room. There's a compli. cated pull..y System and no less than twenty men were pulling this big apparatus across the stage. It was obviously a 19th century concept of the theatre. All that was hidden behind 0 frame. In the Sixties, they were trying to destroy the frame. I wos octuall putting a frame right In front 0 the machinery. r I have done other things that rebel against those ideas, but I believe os a philosophy that It is Important to contra dict yourself. At any role, I om for aport from Grotowskl and any kind of ex­ pressionistic or emotive theatre. I even do my best to eUmlnate all apparent emotion. But this mech· anical presentation is not such 0 new Idea either. Nilinski wonted 22 his donce to be purely mechani­ caL • • w. r.heaned Queen Vletorla very ofhtn before playing It for the flnt time. Each time the rehearsal was done exactly In the sam. way, until It became totally mechanical. By contrast. Chris Knowl., and I were doing impro­ visation. Everything Chris was doing In the play was largely im­ provised. Most of the text of Qu••n VIctoria derived from Chris's very spedal use of lan­ guage. Both Raymond Andrews and Christopher Knowles ,.em to operate Independe-ntly of our "colloquia'" tradition. What mode you so receptive to their own perceptions? l: W: I could Identify with them. When I first met Chris, his mother soid: "You know, his notebooks look very similar to youu." So th.re was 0 common concern. In the case of Raymond, he didn't know any words when I met him. That fascinated me. I wandered how he thoughl If he didn't think in terms of words. G: Ccm you really think ,!Ithout words? W: Obviously this kid was think­ Ing, and he was very bright. He was 13 years old and he didn't know any words. He saw every· thing In terms of pictures and thot's how we mode Dealman's Glance. He was living wllh me at the time so I conveyed to him the Idea that we would make a ploy fogether. He would make draw­ Ings-drawings of a table, of a frog, of various things-and th(lt became the play. What happened within these settings were mostly gestures, movements, things that he would observe. It W(lS a language, so to speak. Then I met Chris. I hod heard a tape he had done about his little sister watching TV. I didn't know him but I wos Intrigued by the tape. Then I became more fasci­ nated with him and what he was doing with language. He would take ordinary, everyday words and destroy them. They became like molecules thai were always changing. breaking apart all the time, many.faceted words, not lusl a dead language. a rock breaking apart. He was constant· Iy redefining the cades. Chris constructs as he speaks. The agents; specialized educators, non-specialized educators, non-educators, a psychiatrist, a psycholo­ gist, a few specialists that tamper with the ears, the hands or whatever of the children, and 3 psychoanalysts! We could say that one of the three Power Machin­ eries! functioning in this institution was familial; its task is-or was at the beginning of the story-to Oedjpalize the living turnip as well as the debile or (and there's the rub!) the Schizo! As the following narrative demonstrates, the Schiz­ os have made it obvious to the Institution which encloses them that this power apparatus (which could be termed familial) functions thanks to a type, a /orm of discourse unconsciously practiced by the agents of the apparatus-quite simply, the personnel employed by the institution. Power does not function through the substance of the contents, of the ideologies, but rather, on the level of the form of the contents, to use Hjelmslev's terms. More generally, it is those forms specific to communication which the power apparati's agents are obliged to structure, excluding all other forms which could possibly manifest themselves but which consequently must be repressed, forbidden: for example, incestuous or homosexual forms of communication. It was precisely this schizophrenic affirmation against the unconscious attempts at "formation" which Jed the employees of these institutions to reflect on their rea! function and to discover through modify­ ing it their role as unconscious agent for a certain kind of power. ANALYSE INSTITUTIONNELLE The main principle on which the functioning of the institution was based was displacement. There were few permanent places or functions but rather tempora­ ry preferential zones and occupations between which everybody moved and functioned in a more or less dis­ connected way. And in the different workshops the production did not stem from necessity bllt was elab­ orated by groups of people having a common desire to do certain things together. These groups functioned temporarily on all sorts of levels: verbal groups, the sex group, the kitchen group, the architectural group, etc. . But the entire staff was assembled once every two weeks along with the psychoanalysts. The main point of these "assemblies" was, to use Guattari's word, to unyoke (desassujettir) the existing groups in such a way that language and all forms of semiotic systems could circulate through the institution independent of any hierarchical relationship. He Is •••ln9 pictures as he is talking. He is making visual can.'ructlons. Th. same word "the" Is 1;1 line arid �cu;:h line i. different. I responded to what h. was doing mar. 05 an ortlst. I didn't really try to think it through. I I 1M l: It ••ems to b. very logically. even mathematically ord.red 01- " though It may b. futile to try to , , ; understand what that order ' ,: l " :: ;:: � r . hrl5 can organize hl� language I ontan.ously Into mathematlco , g8ometrl<:ol or nu: merkal categorle•• I con't do that as well as h. does. I hav.to write everything down, wh� h tcrke. some time. Chris doe. It natur­ ally. Now I can never explain why something Is done. It lust ._ms right. Things aren't nece$Sorlly arbitrary, but I can't say exactly why they seem to b. so. I think it probably would have a logle of Its own It you spent enough time to figure it out. G: Can you explain further what you see in common between Ray· mond and Chris? W: They are both highly visual. The typing of "C" on this diagram may stand for his name, Chris· topher, but it Is very visual. Ray. mond's way of understanding and communicating with us was a visual one. He didn't hear the words. We hear and we see with Inferior and exterior audio-visual screenl. When aUf eyes are shut -we sleep, we are blind-then perhaps we see on this Interior visual screen. But when our eyes are o en, we see on this exterior visua screen. If we are deaf, then perhaps we hear an on interior screen: If we listen to the cars, then we heer on our exterior SCreen. r l: Can a play make the Interior screen more visible? W: Whot happened In longer ploys like S'olln Invariably Is that you get mOrtl' of a balance. The exterior and Interior audlo·vlsual screens become Connecled and frequently peeple will talk about things that didn't actually happen on the stage because they were half-asleep. Something else happened and they began to see what they wonted to see. I think we all hear and s_ what we �; 24 wont to hear and .e•. Tony Con­ rad made a film In the sixties that was lust on alternation of block and white frames, In one .econd you would ho.... 204 frames and maybe you would have one white frame, then on. blo<:k , then two whites, .tc., and p&ople would invariably .ee dlff.rent things. Perhaps we see all the time what we wanl to s.e. W. are not hearing the IUlm. things. Some* oneone8 mode alcop of the word "Cogitate, cogltote, cogitate" and people heard all sarts of things, meditate, tragedy, all they wanted to hear. . . People who duol with deaf or autistic children seem essentially concerned with enforcing on them our language and our own conventions. You apparently did lust the reverse. You assumed that there was something to learn from them. L; W: Right. Chris was In school. He was doing these kinds of draw· Ings and he was being slapped. They were trying to correct It in­ stead of encouraging it. No one was really concerned about his drawings as a work of art. I simply said: "It Is very beautiful. Do more of them," L: Do you think yourtheatre helps bridge the distinction between "madness" and art? W: You have an apple [he draws an apple] and in the center of this apple there Is a cube, a crystal. This apple h the world, this cube Is a way of seeing whatever Of course this was the basic principle which in fact gave risc to innumerable conflicts and what I'd like to cal! sub-liminal repression and resistances. THE OED/PANIZATIQN: or What we have not achieved At that time (in 1969) we were all very much im� pressed by Bruno Bettelheim's performances in the Orthogenic school transforming Joey the electric-boy into an electrician , that is, to "cure" a schizophrenic child. And the sfaff was also very milch impressed by the clear writings of Fran90ise Dolto or Maud Man­ noni, ollr psychoanalytical WaldkOren of the Oedipal structure. And we figured out, with the assistance of a whole range of psychoanalytical literature and with the complicity of the 3 psychoanalysts (I was one of them), that (he key to the treatment of schizophrenics was to repair this loss of reality described by Freud. This VerwerjulI, reclosure of "forc!usion" as Lacan calls it, which creates a hole due to the rejection of the Nom-Du-Pere, the Paternal Law, again according to Jacques Lacan, which we believed necessary to the construction of any symbolic order of which the psy­ chotic seems to be deprived. With, the Law, the Nom­ du-Pere, and the inevitability of castration, we enter into the Oedipal structuration of the subject. According to this dear vision of the situation the schizophrenic has a central hole into which he might at any minute be drawn; the task seemed easy : Fill the hole! So \ve did, at least we tried and we failed! and even we began to be drawn into the hole. How did it happen? In several steps: 1st step: Hook the fish! Have you ever noticed the fantastic use of space by a 25 ichizophrenic? Only a Nijinski might have given us an ['dea of how it works. And dumb as we were, we thought that it was nothing but erratic wandering. I �old you! We understood nothing! The story I am tell­ ing you can only be negative. There stood all the educators and non-educators, at the edge of the schizophrenic flow. like fishermen . And then Claire hooked Mimi, and then Leila hooked Michel and then Claude hooked Henri. happens In the world. In the case of Christopher, or even Roy. mond, there was 1'1 Il'Inguage there. One day I said his nome, Raymond, very loudly, and he didn't turn araund. 1 said "Aounn" and he turned around. It was startling. He would turn around and I would imitate his sounds, the sounds of a deaf person, and there would be a recognition of that sound. You could see it Inthe xx " XA 00 Uc p P p tJ p p p p p p p OUDDDDD XX XX " uU I-' P P P rl P P P P P P P uU DOODDDDD XX " XX pe Uu uu pp DU XX XX XX pp UU Uu pp DO XX AX UU X UU 2P pp DO 0 i..X X X lIU UU P � f-' p p p p p j.) p p p DO 00 XXXX uu uu P I -' P i-' P P I -' j- l i-J P P DO 00 XX XX VIJ pp UlJ UU DO XX XX UU pp Uu Ou DO XX pp XX UU UU Ou 00 XX De XX U U U U U U U uUlJVU iJ Ou O D OD D D O PD UUUUUUuUUlJ XX XX ODiJUUiJDOD A relation, as w e said, had been established. But at that time we did not even try to find out what the bait had been and how it had been sent to the hooked schiz­ ophrenic. Well, anyhow . . A chacun son Schizo . To each his own schizo. 2nd Step: Regression techniques. and surrogate maternal You all know these techniques and how delightedly we find proof that regression works when a big boy of 14 shies on his pseudo-marna's knees . . while more or less sucking her ear . . or whatever . . Or when he goes back to these so-called primal screams, or the joyous babbling of the "infans". Meanwhile a kind of tacit conspiracy was estab· fished. We continually strengthened the links between the schizo and his pseudo-mama by sending him back to her whenever he tried to ask someone else for some­ thing. Or by calling the pseudo-mama to help when­ ever the schizo did something weird, like strangling a defenseless young female educat.or. Even when you strangle, YOIl have to strangle your mother. because only this can be interpreted in the Oedipal realm. A short-story: I remember another schizo in another face. When a del'lf penon speaks, "Eah Eeyan Eeaah", you see in the face his nightmare of not being able to speak the hearer's own language. They are imitating us, but they will n.ve, be able to do that. In his face when I said "Aoulnn" I sow he knew what I was really tl'llklng about. There was a recognition Qf the sound. So perhaps that's a language tao, like French is a language. And that's In the center of the cube. The language center. Maybe this is a language that could be learned, or dis. cerned. And the Sl'lme with Chris. topher. The arrangements of his sounds Is samething you can learn to do after a while. There are 2 Cs, and there are A Cs, and there are 8 Cs, and there are 12 Cs, or whatever. It is a language. It Is a way of speaking, like French or German. This may be another language, too, but it could be learned at the center. As long as you say to these two individuals that you don't accept their language, then In most cases It is difficult for them to accept ours. You have to meet half-way; okay, we learn yours and you learn ours, I have nevil' •••n anyone working with deats, no one octually that has ever embrc:u:.ed something like that and recognl:t:.d their languoge as a longuoge. They ore not can· cerned about their lon9u09•. There Is a sign languoge. but they go to the sounds. 1 hove never seen anyone try to relate to a non· hearing person with their own sounds and their own languoge. And the- lome goes with Christopher, the work with "outisms." His .chool wos $Up' posedly the best In the U.S., but no one th.r. was really In­ terested In what the kids were doing-they were there to learn our language. Chris and Raymond both also hove something in common with longuoge which suggests that be­ fore we learn the meaning of a word, we respond to the sound. Sa there Is something very boslc In longuage, there is a longu0ge thot's unlvef5ol, so thot was something else that wos incor· porated In the thealn" Ideally, this theatre con be appreciated by anyone anywhere. I lUst finished dQing 0 play in Poris that Is English words. People respond mostly to the sounds and appar_ ently that's whaf the autists are doing too, They don't understond English but th� listen to whot i5 encoded in these words: energy. lost yeor, Christopher wos taking old batteries, toping people­ spe-aklng ond ploylng the topes 50 thot he was getting these speeches "v.e-r-y s-I·o·w "," It's very strang e what you hear, There ore 011 these other sounds put In the words, l: Have you ever thought of per· institution who had agreed to be hooked by a pseudo· mama, but he used to change his mother every Sun­ day. At the beginning, people thought "It won't last! He will settle down!" But he did not, he was passion­ ately attached to a different mother each week. The situation became more and more traumatic for the abandonned pseudo-mamas so that one day the direc­ tor called a pregnant female educator into his office and ordered her to do the following: "When you feel on the verge of giving birth to your child, hook Peter, to be his mother-of-the week and then we will take him to the dinic, to watch the birth of your child. And then he will have to understand that a child can only have one mother!" 3rd Step: The law of the Father But there is no mother without a Father, and as soon as a!! the libidinal drives have been duly attached to the "mother", it is time to introduce the "Father" as a forbidding element. This introduction is supposed to break the imaginary relationship between the schizo and his pseudo-mama, and introduce him into the realm of a symbolic order where the object has to be known mediately through language taken here in its representative function. I won't titHiate you with the subtle techniques we invented to introduce a threatening papa, but only te!! you the result. 4th step: The explosion When it became plain to Mimi, Michel and Henri that they would have to cope with a third pseudo­ something, a papa, they reacted in a very disconcerting way. Mimi broke three doors, 700 window panes and all the turntables in the institution within a week. Henri got lost in the nearby forest for three days. And the apotheosis of these fireworks was the reaction of Michel the evening of the day he was told that Claude would interfere in his relationship with Leila. He went down to the cellar where the furnace was and turned 27 on a few taps so that a few minutes later, the furnace exploded, nearly destroying an empty wing 0f the chliteau in which the institution was located. NaturalIy Michel was punished and sent to the nearest psychi­ atric hospital, pointing out this story's real function in relation to the Familial Power Machinery. 5th Step: The schizophrenization oj the institution The explosion was quite a shock, and once we had dusted the remains of fear from our well-intentioned hearts, we began to reflect; and instead of trying, to no avail, to understand once again the cases of Michel, Mimi, Henri and the others, we began to question our own functions as agents . . of what kind of power? We began to suspect our therapeutic pseudo-analyti­ cal approach, or at least to question the whole struc­ turation we had been trying to build within, or on, or around the schizo. And instead of asking "But what have they done? And why?", we began-and believe me it was not easy--to ask "What have we done, and why? What are we? And in accordance with what have we done what we have tried to do? What is exactly our function in this big bad world? Have we not been de­ ceived somewhere along the line? What is our relation to this institution, to the Power Machineries, especial­ ly the psyciatric one to which we thought we had to entrust Michel?" We could not answer. But something began to crumble as we were raising questions along these lines. We suddenly realized to what extent we were . . yoked-assujettis-to a technological world to which the Oedipal tool is essential. And the inter�personnal structures began to change at a fantastic pace. Married couples began to tfuly look with undeceived eyes at each other and at what they thought they owned as their lawful rights. We began to reorganize completely all the existing structures, not into other structures but in two directions of transformation: 1) A political action against existing institutions and their Power Machineries; 2) Moving communities, organized or rather unorganized in such a way as to facilitate the circulation of libido and objects according to moving patterns, other than the Oedipal pattern-ossified with no other functions than self-reproduction. 6th Step: The complexijication or the Realization of Schizophrenia It seems that while the sChizophrenization was tak� lng place we forgot about the schizo, and in fact we did. But while a real displacement was introduced into the institution on many more levels than before, and also aU sorts of translations from one level to another, we suddenly realized that the use of space by the schizos fitted into the new ways invented to use the in- forming In the U.S. with foreign longuages In order to creata an enect that would be similar to the one you achlava in Europe with English? W: I thought about that. yes. I hava dona something of that sort with Stol/n: Haf. hap. hat. thera was 2 hats and 3 haps, 2.3-2-1-2, 1·2-3-2-1-2 [He is tapping on the labial-thai sort of thing. That was lust a pattarn of sounds. l: In your theatre, several things can coexist an Ihe slaga without being logkally conn acted. Rela· tlonshlps are .stablJ,had, but thay don't have to b. formulated In words . . . W : This Is the way we think. This is the way we are here Sitting and talking and I am looking ot a pic­ ture and I am thinking I've got to go 11'1 an hour, I've got to be In on airplane. I've got to pack my bag -you know, all these things are gotn9 through the mind at tha some time while I have this con­ versation with you. Actually. I just did a piace called "Dialogua" last week In Boston talking like that with Christopher. I find fra­ quently that you have a chance to express more things at one time In speaking that way. Guy Hocquenghem We All Can" Ole In Bed stitutionnal space. And that in' this space the relation� ship with the schizos was becoming more and more a sort of partnership, I caB it in French partenarite schizophrenique, and I would describe it as the spatial relationship between two ballet dancers dancing a pas­ de-deux. A relation which functions on many more levels than the relationship established through verbal language, And relations which are not necessarily structured like the verbal language, but are only grasped by the different levels of semiotics described by Charles Sanders Peirce and that are now being re­ considered, although slightly differently, by Felix GuattarL' Semiotics perhaps has to be considered in a sort of generalized Pragmatism: I mean in a funda­ mentally pluralized space and in complex systems of mobile connexions. To us then, the schizos began to appear potentially immensely rich. And the less the Oedipal pressure up­ PasoliR! wos kill.d by a swindler. We all can', die in bed, like Franco. Th. Italian .xtreme I.ft Is lndlgnont. M.A. Mocdocchl, In L. Monde, speaks of a falld" plot. More perceptively, Gqvl and Mogglorl .how how the Inc/­ dent WClS a m!crofolds' coup: th_ ouossin, Pelosi, wasn', used by fascism, h. was the voluntary 'n' strument of r"dsm and th. r.' fusal of dlff.rence, the day.to­ day non.polith::h:ed kind of fosdsm. Probably, probably, Some< thing all through thl. explona. tlon does nl)t (onvl"l:;o me: the external and polltlcol I1clur. of 'hi' view point on the murder of a homosexual. Certolllly you can', help but 1l'9r•• with ,h. emolysls of the Pelosi case, you can't help bl,l, r.fuse to consider him, too, as a victim. Turning the �ther cheek Is out of the question. At the lome time, Pasoli..,rs deoth seem� to me neith., abominable, nOf even, pe,hap" regrettable, I find it rather sat'," fylng, a� for as I'm concerned, So much leu stqpld than a hl9hwlSY . Qccldent, In a way, I would. wtlJlt It for myself and for all my frlenefs, Sadlon estheticism? I hope not: It I� only thot 0 fllndomentol ospect of thl; �toryof the murder of 0 homosexual, of homosexu!;!1 murder, necessorily eludes the poilticol onalysts and those who mean to protect homosexuals from their potential murdere,s, on them, the more they compicxified their relationship to their environment. The question, though, was no longer how to make them fit into the "normal" world, but how to open a breach in the normal world for the non-Oedipalized Schizo. It is in this sense, I believe, that schizophrenia may be considered as a revolu­ tionary process, to use the words of Deleuze � Guattari, and to me, this has been made obvious through the effects that the whole process had on the Machinery of State Power, THE REACTION AWare of the fact that something unbearable was taking place in the institution because, I quote, "of the excessive number of divorces . . . . and the strange way of life chosen by the educators", the officials began to react on all sorts of levels. Cutting financial resources, prohibiting the use of this or that part of the chiHeau for security reasons (doors were broken, there were no Jocks, no fences . . . . ), reducing the staff, etc" etc . But they had to cope with a very politically wel!­ orga.nized group of people, who had already accomp­ lished an immense task wjth the neighbors, the shop­ keepers all around, the families, with no small debt to white wine and good food. The attempts at repression immediately became an extremely violent and unexpected political fight. including trade unions, petitions signed by thousands of people, and so on ., before the repression could have any positive effect. So the officials withdrew their weapons, When I left the institution. the officiall; were preparing the second attack: they were ready to accept the new means of functioning as a pilot experiment, and to claim publicly that they were ready to help us financially at the expense of other institutions of the same type, thus nicely isolating us and turning the rest of this particular professional field quite against us. 29 rith reality often b HALDO[ (haloperidol) hoice for starting 19ht , drug " few , l of Usually leaves patients relatively alert and responsive Although some instances of drowsiness have been observed, marked sedation with HAlDOL (haloperidol) is rare. In fact, HALDOL has been reported to actually increase activity in patients who are underactive. while it reduces activity to a normal level in those who are hyperactive. HALDOL has been found to "normalize" behavior and produce a sensitivity to the environment that allows morc effective use of the sodal milieu and the therapeutic community.5 F SI r, H, bl.] mi as.' H, 0" b, Iik su ch re: n H, ex uS> w It Is the intlmgte, ancient, and very strong bond between the nomos9xuQI and his mur· derer, (I bond 0$ traditlonol os their delinquent prescription In the big (ities of 'he Nineteenth Century. We too often forget that dissimulation, the homosexual lie or secret, were never chosen for themselves, through a taste for oppression: they were neces­ sary for the protedlon of 0 de· siring Impulse dlreded towards the underworld, of a libido CIt. frClded by oblects outside the laws of common desire. VClutrln, In Bol�Clc, very well represents this underside of the civill�ed world born of the corruption of big cities where homosexuality Clnd delinquency go hand in hand. As on urbCln pervenlon, /I. Iklt homosexuality hos, from lts origins, been linked with under­ world crime. There Is 0 specifk "dClngerousness" which sur· rounds homosexuality, homo­ sexual blockmoil, homosexuol murder. Gavi and Mogglori quite rightly point out that in the Pelosi trial, ,the vldim Is lust as guilty as the murderer. Which i5 certainly scandCllous, but constitutes 0 dis­ tinctive featUre of the homo· 5exuol condition. In the eyes of the courts ond the polke, there is, in Iheze coses, no difference between victims Gnd murd.rers, there Is but one suspicious "milieu" united by mysterious bonds, a free-masonry of crime where the homo and the mur­ derer intenect. Homosexuality is first of all, and will perhClps for a short while continue to be, a cat­ egory of criminality. Personally, I prefer this state of ClnClirs to its probable transformation into a psychl.otrk category of deviance. Th. libidinal link b.'w.en the criminal and homosexual figures Ignores the rational conc.pls of IClw, the division of Individual responsibilities Gnd th. distribu­ tion of roles between victims ond murderers. A homasexuol mur· der Is a whole, complete Ullto itself, A captain of the Belgian gendarmerie writes In an article devoh.d to the ,Ituotlon of homo­ sexuals: "An attentive surveil. lance of this portlculClr milieu mClkes It poulble 'A compile a very useful documentation for th. dlscov.ry of future swind­ lers. murder.rs, and possibly spies." "Decriminalizing" Homosexuality? Some will tell me that this is predsely what we're fighting against. So? Are we going to de· mond the rational progress of lu.tice In distinguishing victims and the perpetrators? Are we going to require, as do the re­ spedable homosexual a$Soda. tlons, that the police and the courts accept complaints from homosexual. who are mistreat· ed or blackmailed? Will we see gays, exactly like women, de­ mand the condemnation of rap_ Ists by the courts and request protedion under the law? I think on the contrary that even in a struggle for liberation, homosexuality's hope stili lies 'n the fad that It hi perceived as delinquent. let us not confuse self·defense with "respedablli· tatlon". The homosexual has fre· quent contact with the murderer: not only through masochism, suppressed guiltiness or a toste for tronsgreulon, but also be­ cause an encounter with such a character Is a real possibility. Of course, one can always avoid It. All one needs Is to avoid cruising In the criminal wond. To stop cruising the "reets. Not to cruise at all, or only to pick up serious young men from the same ,odc:d sphere. Pasolin! wouldn't be deod If he hod only slept with his actors. This Is what eludes all those who sincerely want to "decrlml­ nalite" homosexuality, to defend It against Itself by severing Its bonds with a hard, violent and marginal world. These combatants oro un' aware that they are thus lolnlng the vast movement, In France and the U.S.A. for example, of respectablll%ation and neutrali· tation of homosexuality. That movement does not progr.ss by Increased repression, but r.llel on the cOntrary on an Intimate transformation of the hot1tqlexu· 01 type, freed from his lean and his marginality and finally inte­ grated Into the law. The traditional queen, like­ able or wicked, the lover of young thugs, the specialist of street urinals, all these exotic types Inherited from the Nine­ t_nth Century, give way to the reassuring modern young homo· sexual (from 25 to 40 years old) 31 this is the end of the non-story I wanted to tell, hope that you won't believe a word of what I not said. I. This is a polemic affirmation directed against entire psychiatric current amply illustrated by the writ· ings of George Heuyer and his epigones. From the very first line of his book Schizophrenia (PUF: Paris; 1974), Heuyer states that: "Schizophrenia is a mental il!ncss." And it is this declaration which probably serves as the pretext for the practices which he de­ scribes as treatment for schizophrenia. 2. Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin (Anchor Press, Doubleday: New York) 1974. 3. Sigmund Freud, "On Negation", Standard Edi­ tion, XIX. 4. Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference (Harper & Row: New York) 1974. 5. Fran�ois Pera!di, "Institutions et appareils de pouvoir", Breches (Aurore: Montreal), No. 6, Automne 1975. 6. Bruno Bettelheim, The Empty Fortress (U. of Chicago Press: Chicago) 1967. 7. Felix Guattari, " Pour une Micro-politique du desir", Semiotext(e), I: 1 , 1974. with mustache and brief case, without complexes or aHeda­ tlons, cold and polit.. In an ad­ vertising lob or sale. position at a large department store, op­ posed to outlandishness, re­ Ipeetful of power, and a lover of enlightened Ilberall5m and cui· ture. Gone are the sordid and the grandlos•• the amusing and the evil, sodo-masochlsm Its.lf Is no longer anything more than a vestiary fashion for the proper que.n. A "White" Homosuuo/ity A stereotype of the legal homosexual, Integrated Into sa­ dety, molded by the Establish· ment, and dose to It in his tastes, reossured, moreover, by the presence in power of an undersecretary who himself is a homosexual without any fols. shame (homosexuality Is no long.r a secret shartJd only by a few InlflatQsl, progressively re­ places the """,.,e diversity of 32 traditional homosexved style,. Finally will eome the time when the homosexual will be nothing rna,..than 0 tourist of sex, (I gra· clous m.mber of the Club Medl­ f.rrone. who hos b••" a 11»1_ farther than the oth.,.., with on horizon 04 pleasur. slightly brooder thon that of his overoge contemporary. w. cannot suspect any of this unl.55 we frequent the homosexual circle, a rother dosed whole which forg.s, eve-" for the most Isolated homolulxu01, the sodal Image of his I;on' dillon. Normalblng pr.uur.s mol'$ quickly, eve" if Parb' and the bars of th. rue Salnt.-Anne or. not all of France. While tn.re are 51111 queens •••king Arabs In the suburbs or Gt PI9oll&, a movement has undeniably be.n lounehed for a truly white homo· sexuality In every .ense of the term. And If is rather curious to note, looking at ods and films or at the exits of the gay bars, the emergence of a unisexual model -that Is, common fa homosexu015 and heterosexuals_offered to the desires and Identification of all. Homosexuals become In' distinguishable, not because they hide their secret better, but becau5e the are uniform In body and 50U , rid of the saga of their ghetto, reintroduced fully and completely not Into their dlf· ference but on the contrary into their similarity. And everyone will fuck In his own sodal doss, the dynamic junior executlve5 will breathe with rapture the- sme-ll of their PQrtne-rs' after-shove-, ond e-ven the Pope will no longer be able to deted anything wrong with It. A very natural thing, as a recent film sold. The n.w official gay will not go looking for 1,15el.ss and dang.rous adve-ntures In the shorf·drcults b.tw.en sodal dasses. He will surely go on be· Ing a 5.xual p.rverf, he'll ell:perl­ ment with fist.fucklng or flagel­ lation, but with the cool good sens. of sexological magadnes. not in sodal vlol.nce, but in sex techniques. Pasalini was old· fashlone-d, the prodigious re' mains of an epoch in the- proce-ss of being left behind. The Ramones Teenage Lobotomy r Translated by George Richard Gordner, Jr. Lobotomy, lobotomy, lobotomy, lobotomyl DDT did a job on me Now I am a real sickie Guess I'll have to break the news That I got no mind to lose. AI! the girls are in love with me I'm a teenage lobotomy. Slugs and snails are after me DDT keeps me happy Now I guess I'll have to teil 'em That I got no cerebeilum. Gonna get my PhD I'm a teenage lobotomy. © 1977 Taco Tunes-Bleu Disque Music Co Inc. [ASCAPj. almost c\'('ry delail of his ('xpcrif�nce, <lnd J('scribcd it viddly i n Tltt Lrlllrf{ of F('bnIary ! 2. ! 96(\: "[ \\';-IS chicOy struck by the godlikf' detachment of the hpspital psychia trist. Tn he fair, this viiricd 1rOiTl HUJlI tn man, but I gl'lt tll(' impression that, tn' and Li r,W\ they thoui{ht IIH'y cou l d cnrc ally t b ing \yith d rugs :lnd shnck, ill l'l1 urh tll(' SHnw way th,\l <1 mechanic tackk" engine repairs. The atmosphere q/, tlh: piau' was snch that ()J1(,(' ! beg;an to reC(1\'('r, I tried 10 i{d nut as quickly as pos5ihk, nTH rh()ugll I WilS conscIOus of not bcillR myself I d i d sign lll:'.<wlf ('Ilit 1(1[' days� but I was persuaded medieal staff was it to ;1 Ii,\'. go back. Perhaps this a U i luck to the' symp! Olll IJr m y illness. "Oll the eflc7ct or the dnH';s 1 \\-<1$ gin'n, 1 all1 mor(' S l l rt ' 1 )( I l l : grou n d . The \Yorst part of the ('xpcrknct· was whcn I hegan i t o r�('()\'('r. 1 could !lot couu'n(r<'ltc I'm l'vvtl IlljllUI{',� !o.�('! h er. I t'ould neitlwl' read nor !()l!ow til<' tt'k\-i.�i()ll. Ckcup,lti()llal l herap� !len!nj a trell1('ndous ('{-]rlft - !lOl tht' actual \\-lJrk, hut t o take ;lU illft'l'<.'st in it­ On the otlwr ha nd , just sitting dning nothing lirollg-ht !hl rdicL Tlll' 121 34 The Boston Declaration The Fourth Annual North American Conference (In Human Rights and Psychiatric Oppression meeting in Boston Massachusetts, May 28-31, 1976, adopts the following posillons: We oppose INVOI.,UNTARY PSYCHIATRIC INTERVENTION, in"'"ding. but not limited 10 involun_ tary civil commitment, forced psychiatric procedures, and "voluntary" procedures without informed consent hecau5l: ills immoral and unconstitutional; because il is II denial of freedom, due pf(Jcess of law, Rnd Ihe right to be lei alone; beclIuse il ls a denial of the Individual's right 10 control his or her own 50111, mind, and body. We oppOse FORCED PSYCHIATRIC PROCEDURES, such as drugging, shock, psychosurgery, re­ straints, sedusion, and IIver$ive behavior modification because they humiliate, debllilate, Immobiliu, and injure; because they are at best quackery (attempts 10 • 'cure" non-exislent diseases) and at WOI':'II {onure (bru­ tal, painful techniques to control human thought, feeling and conduct.) We oppose the PSYCHIATRIC SYSTEM because It is inherently tyrannical; becanse It is an extra·legal, parallel police force which snppreS$es cultural and polillcal dissidence: because iI punishes Individuals who have had or cloim to hove had spiritual experlentes, and invalidates those experiences by defining them as "symptoms" of "mental illness"; because it uses the trappings of medidne and sdence to mask the stX:1a1 control fnnction it serves: because it feeds on the poor lind powerieS$: the elderly, women, children, sexulIl miuorities, Third World people; be<.:ause it creates a stlgmatiud class of soddy whiCh Is easily oppressed and tontrolled; because II invalid�tes the real n«ds <.If poor people by offering sotial welfare under the guise of psydri· alr!c "care and treatment"; because its growing innuence in educlltlon, the prisons, the military, government, Industry, and medi_ cine threatens to turn sodety into a psych/lltrle Slate, made up of two classes, those who give "therapy" and those who receive It; because it is similar in Importaut ways to the Inquisition, chattel slavery, and Nazi and Soviet concentra­ tion camps: thai it cannot be reformed but must be abolished. We oppose the CONCEPT Of "MENTAL II_LNESS" brcause it justifies involuntary psychiatric intervention, especially the impriwnment of individuals who have not been convicted of any crime. on Psychiatric Oppression We oppose Ihe use of PSYCHIATRIC n:RMS because Ih('y are fundamentally stigmatizing. demeaning, unscientific lind superstitious, and propose thai plain English be used in Iheir place: for e:tllmple: PlaIn English Psychiatric Inmate Psychiatric Instilution Psychiatric System Psychiatric Procedure Characleristic. Trait Conduct Dru, Drugging Electroshock Psychiatric Term Mental Patient, Menially Disabled, Mentally HandiCllpped Person Mental Hospila1 Mental HeaUh System Treatment Symptom Behavior Medication Chemothentpy Electrotherapy. El�trlc Stimulation Therapy WE BEI,IEVE: thai people should have Ihe rigbl In suicide. that alleged dangerousneS$, whether 10 one&elf or others, should nol he considered grounds for denying personal liberty; that only proven criminal acts shOUld be the basis for such denial; that person charged with crimes should be tried in tltt criminal justh.:e system wilh due process of law and that psychiatric professionals shonld not be given expert witness status. that al1ention should he rocus.�ed not on the potential dangerollSness of the psychiatric defendant, but on the actnal criminality of those who use inoluntary psychiatric Interventions. thai there shonld be no involuntary psychiatric interventions in prlwns; that Ihe prison system should be reformed and humanil:ed. that as long as one person's liberty is restricted no one is free. that a voluntary network of care and support sbould be developed to serve the needs of people without limiting their rights or lessening their dignity Of self-respect. thai the psychiatric system Is by definition a pacification program conlrolied by psychiatrists and de­ signed to help, persuade, coerce people into adjusting to established social norms. Throughout society, more and more pe/lple are abandoning these norms. More and more people are demanding self-determinatfon and community control. More and more people are Hallzing that economic and pOlitical power is concentrated in the hands of a few, who are determined to keep It-by any means necessary iuclnding Involuntary psychiatric Intervention. Bul we an:' asserting that as an in�trument of sodal conltol, involuntary psychiatric Inter­ vention is a procedure whose time has gone. We are demanding an end to involuntary psychiatric illlerven!lon and we are demanding individnal IIb'erty and sodal jll�Uce. We Intend to make these words real and will not test nntil we do. ' , , � ..... Ex-Pall " ··�·I·"'·' . ' .'""·",.I" , "" , ' ' ,h. " ....... '""'.� ,f". !-"",t, ..� , " ' ", ••",' ft. ,,- ,,'•., ' ')",·,,,, I .,/!,, I•.'". .,t ' ' , - " . " ",.., ," ,,",,,� "" ", II. . , ., ., . ,," . , "� ••" " _' - ,,_.. .H, '" • •"j"• •• • , . . . .., ,, ,. . . .,."F, . . �.'" ' ,I. . . . .. "" .f . ' , 1 .,. ' " --, ',,, ,, '" � -" <' ,, ' :�;:}',;:�:7�:.;:;'�::'"'"' . :·".: :: :�;;:'': ::: :� : �7?�:7 , � . '''' ' ''' " M O ' "m . 1"•••�' "" .".,.... -.......�, '-.-'''. " �, ": ' :; . '�:,:�:�::.'::I " . -" '" " '-;"'" • • • ,.. .. .1 ... . 1'.-- '. "",,-. ,�" ." ," ', " ,.,,,. : [. ., . " �" ., ,..' t', " Ex-PatIents and hostility controlled "••rloo k ;1." Tho!..... �f...' ;",,,I,w th"' -.he wa' .tty C<mcern...t""''''' ,"" r�, mel;"n nf ho, I'"yr,in\d h. lie, ill"..", whkll might if>ilicul. wll} ,"" " "'" filling ho, ",wkal;'''' rr.,,;r,!,,'''''' F...nk;';.a' w<ll. I,,,,,,'"k,n� h" ",.,,1 .:,""" " !,,""'n" i<Kli"" ",'<:",i�ly ,... . <:ju<;�I.';o" 0" ,h. ,,1M' Imnt!. "',tb J.... . .on� B." ,aid ,he} ",e•• "'� .,,,.,,,,<1 , ,,' ,110 illne,' and Ihat .h<:j, «:1,,,,,", .I><>u' II F<.>rm<' 1"""''''' "",,,,,,d 'h••' hd""� u""""".noJi,,� �) ,""" f;"",I"" ••",j '.,� ins ,hei, """'icine ''',, ' lit 111<'" ,ml'''' ron, 1"''' '"""",in� "'''''._ I.,.<,I,,,� " I t...", '" <"'ph" ired ,"" im",,"" n..< "I ,,,,, .ioumg 1«,"me,,1 "I'er ..s,,,�,,,�" <\�" ..htn �f",...., . """.m fe<:l·· (,<rlc_'" ,.dl .. 1-1" ""led ,"") h.". j,"mJ , ,,,, ",",,=m among effective _ 0'.' aP<" ,h., dl'�"n'm.',,'''''' ''· ''''�Im.,,' "." "" ' -� .....1 J,,,,,,,', " Wllt" )""-t< ..1''''''''>'''..1 " • ' C ' . hl.r d <"en f."n� ,�"' �,.,) � w < "" .,. ,lI<r. "nd .r� ,">mm� ""' I' . �,," .. � humc "�",c '"" em,·""",,-'" . " '1 d,lf.,.n, ,,,,�!.., ,f·" , . h l!"n�' .,' ,,,. . """�,,� "," 1• f"jU:- l(�lh "'''' H.. �",�.nd ddded_ J " .' "'" '. 'hinl ,hJ.1 aim,,,, �n»'h,n, ",� f>. '''.'<:<>me rt )"U h.,< .. '<,' ",J,' '1and'''� S",,""h l<u'� l l " '.- '--... ,""';"'",�ndm. ....''''<''"''<. I �"� .. ke••u'-< J ,uP' ".-�) J "., t<"'''I'h' "r "" and I(u'� '1'<;.1.. <"dk�' 'h<; fW"� 1�< �,ff,. ",. l'r>CfrLol h,,�hh '<On,••_ �."." "',, • ."'" '4'<�l n and ,,,,,Mh,,,b ''' I.�,,· "If �'''<. ''''Ha< ,,"'" - ,,�. -" ,�" "'"'""" " �,'<'d de.1 ,,' '"I"r,'" � ,;' " rr...�f,"" 1H: 1T""\�" """r'_" �,_ Hei<:1'l ""'.� It.: ",,�,,'.�",,-'­ ,...." t....ho,t-......;�". "'" fl' " '.<. """ C�c,,\ _"..,.....:l Ih<, ,,,,.<,,,', " �""""r\<"l.,) ''f''"� '' ��'�'-'''''''' '." dlffi.;uh Navane' (thiothixene)(thiothi xene HCI) P_'_ '-"""''''''''.m." N ''"""",,, , " ', ..1>" ""ul<l h." ,�""tr,-,,," _,,� ,,"mw l1>< �"l " fu1�",�� h ! N"" u,ro,-.,...,.,.... m ,.� \,.... TI.. ,l........, H. .....'�, \tN'__' h,', ri.>n' f\q<.>""",n1 .>1' p..." h,·· ,.... fI�h4'''''-�: �.:t�".:<' , n II " -, "�",bnJ, �,I' .-!fe' •• " -.., ...l ,, June :' ,m --1,,!,,,, lnt ,'�'<"''''- ,' , ....)dn�m . ' u• •·..., '-1'" , .,' d"J� _,;h12''T'�rn''"'- _,�," <,,_.�,' " ,,-, -k"",Nt,,_ .,'>.! " -'r-" �-,.'" """''-' I'',.."-.l,,,c- I,., ,.,,,, I"',,," " � 11" "\.,1,;".",, ,,-,.! .� ,-' '<,',,,,,,,_ ,he',' �I:' ... _em,,",'''' ,.f ,,,!i' I. ,".� {,-",,'r" Tl1,. r· ,.,,· ,- � . �",- _� r" '"'' f,·' _,,__.1\<1 .·n,' ,,,,, !<,.," .�" 1"- _ _ CM.... ' l ,'<.1<' , .� " ,'0 , 1/,',," 0' . \"',--, ,," \h'.t" ,' I , , , ,,, j-,' " ,,,.� , '",f ' o'-' , : . , � I' I' \'" - . \! . \! " , ' " , William Burroughs The Limits of Control There is growing interest in new tech­ niques of mind-control. It has been sug­ gested that Sirhan Sirhan was the subject of post-hypnotic suggestion as he sat shaking violently on the steam table in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles while an as yet unidentified woman held him and whispered in his ear. It has been alleged that behavior modification tech­ niques are used on t.roublesome prisoners and inmates. often without their consent. Dr. Delgado, who stopped a charging bull by rcmote control of electrodes in the bull's brain. has left the U.S. recently to pursue his studies on human subjects in Spain. Brainwashing, psychotropic drugs, lobot� amy and other more subtle forms of psychosurgery; the technocratic control apparatus of the United States has at its fingertips new techniques which if fully exploited could make Orwell's 1984 seem like a benevolent utopia. But words are still the principal instruments of control. Suggestions are words. Persuasions are words. Orders are words. No control machine so far devised can operate without words, and any control machine which attempts to do so relying entirely on external force or entirely on physical control of the mind wiIJ soon encounter the limits of contro!. A basic impasse of all control ma­ chines is this: Control needs time in which to exercise control. Because control also needs opposition or acquiescence; other­ wise it ceases to be control. I control a hypnotized subject (at least partially); I control a slave, a dog, a worker; but if I establish complete control somehow, as by implanting electrodes in the brain, then my subject is little more than a tape recorder, a camera, a robot. You don't control a tape recorder-you use it. Consider the distinc­ tion, and the impasse implicit here. AU control systems try to make control as tight as possible, but at the same time, if they succeeded completely, there would be noth­ ing left to control. Suppose for example a control system installed electrodes in the brains of all prospective workers at birth. Control is now complete. Even the thought of rebellion is neurologically impossible. No police force is necessary. No psycho­ logical control is neceSJ;ary, other than pressing buttons to achieve certain activations and operations. The controllers could turn on the machine, and the workers would carry out their tasks, at least they might think so. However, they have ceased to control the workers, since the workers have become machine-like tape recorders. When there is no more opposition, control becomes a meaningless proposi­ tion. It is highly questionable whether a human organism could survive complete control. There would be nothing there. No persons there. Life is will, motivation and the workers would no longer be alive, per­ haps literally. The concept of suggestion as a control technique presupposes that control is partial and not complete. You do not have to give suggestions to your tape- recorder, nor subject it to pain. coercion or persuasion. The Mayan control system, where the priests kept the all-important Books of seasons and gods. the Calender, was pred­ icated on the illiteracy of the workers. Modern control systems are predicated on universal literacy since they operate through the mass media-a very two·edged control instument, as Watergate has shown. Control systems are vulnerable, and the news media are by their nature un­ controllable, at least in Western society. The alternative press is news, and al­ ternative society is news, and as such both are taken up by the mass media. The mono­ poly that Hearst and Luce once exercised is breaking down. In fact, the more completely hermetic and seemingly success­ ful a control system is, the more vulnerable it becomes. A weakness inherent in the Mayan system was that they didn '{ need an army to control their workers, and there- fore did not have an army when they did need one to repe! invaders. It is a rule of social structures that anything that is not needed will atrophy and become inopera­ tive over a period of timc_ Cut off from the war game-and remember, the Mayans had no neighbors to quarrel with-they lose the ability to fight. In the Mayan Caper I suggested that such a hermetic control systcm could be completely dis­ oriented and shattered by even one person who tampered with the control calender on which the control system depended more and more heavily as the actual means of force withercd away. Consider a control situation: ten people in a lifeboat. Two armed sclf­ appointed leaders force the other eight to do the rowing while they dispose of the food and watcr, keeping most of it for themselves and doling out only enough to keep the othcr eight rowing. The two leaders now need to exercise control to 40 maintain an advantageous position which they could hold without it. Here the method of control is force-the possession of guns. Decontrol would be accomplished by overpowering the leaders and taking their guns. This effected, it would be advantageous to kill them at once. So once embarked on a policy of control, the leaders must continue the policy as a matter of self-preservation. Who, then, needs to control others? Those who protect by such control a position of relative advantage. Why do they need to exercise control? Because they would soon lose this position of advantage and in many cases their lives as well, if they relinquished control. Now examine the means by which control is exercised in the lifeboat scenario: The two leaders are armed, let's say, with .38 revolvers--twelve shots and eight potentia! opponents. They can take turns sleeping. However, they must sti!! exercise care not to let the eight rowers know that they intend to kill them when land is sighted. Even in this primitive situation, force is supplemented with deception and persuasion. The leaders will disembark at point A, leaving the others sufficient food to reach point B, they explain . They have the compass and they are contributing their navigational skills. In short they wil! endeavour to convince the others that this is a cooperative enterprise in which they are all working for the same goal. They may also make concessions: fncrease food and water rations. A concession of course means the retention of control--that is, the disposition of the food and water supplies. By persuasion and concessions they hope to prevent a concerted attack by the eight rowers. Actually they intend to pohon the drinking water as soon as they leave the boat. If all the rowers knew this they would attack, no matter what the odds. We now see that another essential factor in control is to conceal from the controlled the actual intentions of the controllers. Extending the lifeboat analogy to the Ship of State, few existing governments could withstand a sudden, all-out attack by all their under­ priviliged citizens, and such an attack might well occur if the intentions of certain existing governments were unequivocally apparent. Suppose the lifeboat leaders had built a barricade and could withstand a IN PSYCHIATR EMERGENCII HALDOC (haloperidol) injection ��,:��lyagiklted __. fr&1JerlIfy w1hn a fl.'W hcu� can be odmini$lel"ed Qt any uSUClI I.M, �ite -fOI!:.-.fy CClI.rilg bed irrilaj;,y, Cf sl�l9"9 .... aKUfar, hepalk has minimaleffect on cnrdk or renallundion. highly seEKific control of HALOO[ \hdoperidof iniection 41 concerted attack and kill all eight of the rowers if necessary. They would then have to do the rowing themselves and neither would be safe from the other. Similarly, a modern government armed with heavy weapons and prepared for attack could wipe out 950/0 of its citizens. But who would do the work, and who would protect them from the soldiers and technicians needed to make and man the weapons? Successful control means achieving a balance and avoiding a Showdown where all�ollt force would he necessary_ This is achieved through various techniques of psychological control, also balanced. The techniques of both force and psychological control arc constantly improved and re­ fined, and yet worldwide dissent has never been so widespread or so dangerous to the present controllers. All modern control systems arc riddled with contradictions. Look at England. "Never go too far in any direction" is the basic rule on which England is built, and there is some wisdom in that. However, avoiding one impasse they step into an­ other. Anything that is not going forward is on the way out. Well, nothing lasts forever. Time is that which ends, and contra! needs time. England is simply stal­ ling for time as it slowly founders. Look at America. Who actually controls this coun­ try? It is very difficult to say. Certainly the very wealthy are one of the most powerful control groups. They own newspapers, radio stations. and so forth. They are also in a position to control and manipulate the entire economy. However, it would not be to their advantage to set up or attempt to set up an overtly fascist government. Force, once brought in, subverts the power of money. This is another impasse of control: protection from the protectors. liitler formed the S.S. to protect him from the S.A. If he had lived long enough, the question of protection fro;n the S.S. would have posed itself. The Roman Emperors were at the mercy of the Praetorian Guard, who in one year killed twenty Emperors. And besides, no modern industrialized country has ever gone fascist without a pro� gram of military expansion. There is no longer any place to expand to-after hun­ dreds of years, colonialism is a thing of the past. 42 There can be no doubt that a cultural revolution of unprecedented dimensions has taken place in America during the last thirty years, and since America is now the model for the rest of the western world, this revolution is worldwide. Another fac­ tor is the mass media, which spreads any cultural movements in all directions. The fact that this worldwide revolution has taken place indicates that the controllers have been forced to make concessions. Of course, a concession is still the retention of control. Here's a dime, I keep a dollar. Ease up on censorship, but remember we could take it all back. Well, at this point that is questionable. Concession is another control bind. History shows that once a government starts to make concessions it is a one-way street. They could of course take all the concessions back, but that would expose them to the double jeopardy of revolution and the much greater danger of overt fascism, both highly dangerous to the pres­ en! controllers. Does any dear policy arise from this welter of confusion? The answer is probablY no. The mass media has proven a very unreliable and even treacherous in­ strument of control. It is uncontrollable owing to its basic need for NEWS. If one paper or even a string of papers owned by the same person tries to kill a story, that makes that story hotter as NEWS. Some paper will pick it up. To impose govern­ ment censorship on the media is a step in the direction of State control, a step which big money is most reluctant to take. I don't mean to suggest that control automatically defeats itself, nor that pro­ test is therefore unnecessary. A govern­ ment is never more dangerous than when embarking on a self-defeating or downright suicidal course. It is encouraging that some behavior modific:-ation projects have been exposed and halted, and certainly such exposure and publicity should conlinue. In fact, I submit that we have a right to insist that all scientific research be subject (0 public scrutiny, and that there should be no such thing as "top-secret" research. All Star (Red) Must Be Shot From Card To Win Prize rhis Target Void If Handled By Anyone Except Attendan Louis Wolfson Full Stop for an Infernal Planet or The Schizophrenic Sensorial Epileptic and Foreign Languages We shall see at the time of the noblest, the most glorious, the most musical ("One Hundred Thousand Love Songs"), the sexiest, the most transcendant, the most altruistic and equally the most selfish, the most excusable, the most intelligent, especially the healthiest, and the holiest. the most divine instant that a humanity can attain anywhere and anytime, while the redemptive flame of one hundred thousand good H-bombs is lit and onc hundred thousand new happy little celestial bodies are born, we shall see whether we suffer or lick the flames or if we are too stunned by the shock to understand what's happening or too blessed, or one or the other according to personal, individual fate, chance, Providence . . . Or perhaps the blessed apocalypse would come imme­ diately after some scientists succeed in producing momentarily four whole ounces of so-called anti�matter, supposedly consisting of anti�particJes, which alone would suffice for the sanctification of every one of us, four ounces of antj�water, for example, somewhat less than one hundred and twenty-five grams (the contents therefore of one�fourth of an enema, or little enema {or shouldn't we rather say "anti-enema"]). All dead, all "equal", all good soc� ialists, good communists, good democrats, good republicans, good crusaders, good zionists, good islamized . . all beatified . . no more reaction, revolu­ tion, counterrevolution, "establishment", consumer society, gadgets, or con­ sumption of any kind . . and finally the world�wide revolution consumated . no more need to seduce the voters, to agree with the leader or the troyka of the party, to pander to presidents of the republic, to erect altars to dead old enemas of politicians, to lick the arses of their corpses . . no more need to fart, to piss, to shit . . no more need to suffer, to make suffer . . . to ratiocinLouis Wolfson's Le Schizo et les langues or "the psychotic's phonetics" (Gallimard: Paris, 1970), echoes Raymond Roussel in its attack against mor­ phology and syntax. Wolfson wrote his memoirs in French in defiance of his mother tongue (he is American). Although the title ironically intimates that Wolfson himself is the "schizo", what he explicitly pursues through his texts is the "Ultimate Truth and Writing". The following excerpt, which concludes the new version of his book to be called Point final d une planete in/ernole, attempts to give a "clear statement of the only possible response to the most important question that humanity in its cosmos should ask itself . . planetary disintegration, radioactive deserts . . BOOM ! ! ! ! " (Letter of 29 May 1977 to S.L.) 45 ate, to philosophize on a frightful. monstrous phenomenon, to pray to God, ail of us being triumphantly in His kingdom. with the angels . . a planetary kamikase or Massada, a perfect Islamic submission . . . N "'** * (date) Mister President (or Minister, Chancellor, Senator, Ambassador, Representa­ tive, Mayor. . . ) Y" z· * (Dear) Sir, I have sent a letter similar to what follows to the Secretary-General of the UN, I cannot understand why people at the UN and elsewhere, who arc supposed to be intelligent and who, apparently, like to think of themselves as "good people" keep talking about the limitation of nuclear arms or even about disarmament! If you consider that around three thousand years ago our poor planet was infected with only 50 million (perhaps a slightly low estimate) copies (while. certainly. a single specimen would already have been too many) of the unfor­ tunate human species; if you imagine having had at that time a pile of good H-bombs at your disposal and having used them to crumble the crust of this damned pianet Earth and possibly to convert it into a second chain of asteroids. a first large ring of such little celestial bodies being located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter; and if you consider then what a litany of un­ speakable horrors which still continue and are synonymous with humanity would not have occurred . . . ll What philosopher would have even dreamed. thirty-five years ago, of thus attacking the so sick matter which we an are? What philanthropist? What man of good will? But now we absolutely must not miss the chance-and to have such a chance is too good to be true-finalIy to bring to an end at last this infamous litany of abominations that we an are (collectively and individually); and I mean by that. obviously, in a complete atomic-nuclear way! Don't they say that the best medicine is prophylactic medicine? The tragedy, the true catastrophe-despite what the notable liars seem to want to sell us-is that humanity continues . while the divine benediction would be qualified as thermonuclear or some equivalent thereof. Not to be of this opinion is to be selfish, criminal, monstrous. if not stark mad. Yours faithfully, L. P . S . I suppose that all, or nearly all, religions, if one also wallts to look at things from that angle, conceive of Hell or Hades as a subterranean place. But if the Earth were converted into a large ring of planetoids around the sun. then no more "under world" . . . . 1 As go the words of a certain very popular song: "No marc problems in the sky." And as the Pope said during his trip to the Far-East: "God is light". and without a doubt included there is the resurrec­ (ional light at the time of a planetary disintegration . the disintegration of an infernal star. However, such letters naturally having no perceptible effect, perhaps even an effect contrary to the one sought, our protagonist would become a partisan of Violence. of arsons and assassinations, and would hope�a!l the more naiVely. since a certain ignorance, a certain cowardice, a certain indi fference reign . . over all-that men and women of true good will would suppress as .6 quickly as possible the monsters of cruelty all over the world who speak of the limitation of armaments , . . and thus reveal their "prenuc1ear". outdated, in­ fantile, unrealistic, backward, hypocritical, inhuman way of thinking . . . and likewise a fanatical zeal for turning their backs on certain marvCious properties of matter which arc known at last and infinitely beneficial. . . ! {It is not then. for example, visits, be they reciprocal and with a minimum of red-tape, between East and West Berliners or between East and West Germans. that arc needed, but rather the audacious attempt to enable all humanity, in as short a time as possible. to take intergalactic trips through the skies . . . 1 It is quite understandable that so many made such a big deal over the famous lunar expe� diHons ("a giant step . . . 1"], which however took a week for the round-trip in space although our natural satellite is only two light-seconds away. So if you consider that, flying at the speed of light [300,000 kilometers per second], it would still take one hundred thousand years [diameter of the disc1 to traverse only our own galaxy [the Milky Way: 100,000 million { "" 100 billion} stars among which our sun is only one of average size {less than two-thirds of a million typographic characters in the present work}] and that it would take one hundred sixty thousand more years at that same "giddy" speed to reach the nearest neighboring galaxy, one among hundreds of millions of others and whose numbers seem limited only by the lone power [extending however to a distance of billions of light�years] of man to penetrate his cosmos and these hundreds of millions of galaxies seem to move away from each other at unbe­ lievable speeds [an exploding universe, but, alas! not quickly enough for the great salvation of all Earthlings] !) Whatever heights science may attain, it may only make more and more patent two facts: I . Those heights can only be attained by mercilessly crushing and walking over mountains of human beings. 2. And indeed be it for this single reason, all of planet Earth should become as quickly as possible a radio­ active desert or disappear through disintegration. Do those who hold power have to wait, before they'll submit to the obvious, until the world populati()fl becomes so enormous that more people will die every day than there are in a nation of respectable size today? Until the chaos and the impossibility o f finding legitimate meaning are multiplied b y the infinite? Until everyone has become raving mad? And the "future generations" down here that we talk about so much, are they anything but mineral salts in the earth, fluid or even solid water, gas molecules in the aiT, and such little "tripe", which-in the course of the processes of germination and growth-would become plants which would be guzzled up by pregnant women or gobbled by herbivores, whose flesh, in turn, would be ingested by those same pregnant women . . . ? ! The true good fortune o f the "future generations" would b e for them not to materialize at all!! To my mother, a musician, who died in the middle of May at midnight between Tuesday and Wednesday from a metastatic mesothelium (and medical failures) at the Memoria! Death House in Manhattan, one thousand 977. (Early in 1972, Rose (M(l)inarsky Wolfson) Brooke, nearly seventy years old-having witnessed the new tenants upstairs move out and the new tenant downstairs on the verge of doing likewise, as had others before her, and detecting the apparent worsening of her only son's schizophrenia-wanted to 'retire' once and for all by selling her three, family house after h,lVing found a good apartment in a better neighborhood, and to move there with the aforementioned son and her husband. Destiny (1) arranged that this semi­ luxury apartment which she found in Queens (a borough of New York City) would be located on 138th Street and thaI, five years later, she would die on the 138th day of the year). Translared by George Richard Gardner, Jr. Lee Breuer of Mabou Mines Media Rex Sylvere lOTRINGER: What is your last "animation", Shaggy Dog, about? lee BREUER: The story is simply the proto­ typical American love affair circa 1957· 1977. Twenty years of emotional programming. SL: What about the dog? LB: The dog, in California slang (we are mainly West Coast), is a woman who follows, who has no consciousness of her own but derives completely from the male consciousness. Attachment to the mate becomes a matter of life and death. Shaggy Dog is a description of this syndrome that eventually becomes the energy and motivation for liberption. SL: The woman is passive, but so is herJohn. He follows and reacts as much as she does. Everyone in the play is passive then. LB: That's right. B y the time John is intra· duced, instead of finding the leader, you have the image of a man who himself was being led. So they both are being led by the· fantasies of each other and not by reality whatsoever. SL: Where is reality then? LB: Beneath media consciousness, or above it. Shaggy Dog is an attempt to break the elastic blanket of media consciousness and find some base of realer action. SL: How can you break the blanket? LB: f tried to write simultaneous pieces that comment on each other. Shaggy Dog is divided into two plays; the sound track and the image track. The sound track is the story of John and Rose. The image track is the story of Eddie Griffm Breaking Men's Minds The use of behavior control and human techniques experimentation against prisoners is on the rise in the US. Indefinite solitary confinement, sensory deprivation, forced druggings and mind­ control techniques are being used more and more to break prisoners and stop their attempts to fight deteriorating conditions in US. prLwns. The most ominous of these programs is the long-term control unit at the Marion, Illinois Federal Prison�the replacement for Alcatraz as the maximum-security prison in America. Many men have been driven insane in this unit. In the past five years, nine men have committed suicide in the unit or just ajrer being releasedfrom it. Because of this growing crisis, the prisoners in the control unit, the Marion Brothers, have brought a precedent-setting class action suil against (he U.S. Bureau of Prisons. Bono vs. Sax be. which seeks to close the control unit permanently, was fried in 1975 in the federal cOlirts. III April, 1978 the court ruled in fa vor 0/ the Bureau of PrisollS. While closing the notorious sensory deprivation boxcar celts, the courf aIlowed the control unit to remain open. In jact, the court justified the use of the control unit willi one 0/ the oldest and most repressive legal doctrines, the doctrine 0/ preventive detention. Under Eddie Grif Jin is one oj the Marion brothers. He has been detained ill the control unit-which he describes here as "the end oj rhe !ine"-of the Federal prison in Marion, [{{inois. 49 Rose's attempt to purge herself of the sound track. The narrative level (the sound track) is an amalgam of all kinds of pop records-we must have used 40 different singers-all the way from Bmy Holliday to Stevie Wonder. The image track is a bit more obscure, I was inte­ rested in Eastern psychology as an alternate point of view to a Freudian Of Jungian approach. In this perspective, the ego is com­ posed of five' parts, which correspond to the five rooms in Rose's house. Each of these has its imagery, its own color, its own symbolic shape. The bedroom is greed, the bathroom is pride, the kitchen hate or aggression, the cutting-room jealousy and the living-room, the this doctrine, prisoners can be put in the control unit indefinitely on the basis of what behavior controllers call "predictive behavior"-that is, they can "predict that a prisoner will join a hunger strike, work stoppage, etc. This decision is nQw being appealed. In addition, the National Committee to Sup� port the Marion Brothers. organized in 1975, iy leading an organizing campaign to win public support for the Marion Broth­ ers. It is important that they win this batt/e. If the prison system wins, other control units like Marion's will be built. center, is stupidity. The idea is that the four wings of the mandala aU stem from ignorance, and stupidity is interpreted simply as inability to see the truth. SL: How do you deal with stupidity? LB: One of the tenets of the so-called avant­ garde now has been elimination of media influ­ ence, purity of a certain sort: pure sound, no amplification, pure movement, the minimalist performance. What I wanted to do is just jump in the middle of a big steak dinner, in the mid­ dle of the whole garbage dump and then look for a way to jump it. My great thrill is that there is not one piece of acting in Shaggy Dog that does not represent a cliche. ! wanted to com­ mit myself to cheapness {on my own terms) and the only aesthetic control I had over this was one of the so-called "incorrigibles" who had come into conflict with the Terre Haute officials and was threatened with being sent to Marion. After receiving an injury in the prison machine shop where I narrowly missed losing a finger, I was patched up, ad­ ministered a painkiller. then sent back to work. There was almost a repeat of the same accident soon afterwards, so I decided to quit my work. I was immediately locked up in segregation. Prisoners do not control their institution. My insistence led to my being shipped to Marion. garbage was how I would manipulate the jumps. SL: How do you jump the garbage? La: I use oppositions. Oppositions are the base of the acting technique as well as the writing technique. Of course, the idea of oppo­ sitions ! originally got from Brecht (they are the key to the alienation effect), but I think I ex· plored them in my own way. Oppositions puH apart a closed system, the closed system of popular or commercial emotional manipula· tion. If you allow your mind to pull apart, categories will not grab, They will leave a space of truth in between them so that you will not rest in an accepted perception. The objective was to pull apart the audience's expectation so that some new perception had room to materialize between these various poles. SL: A dramatic development usually results from a filling-in between two poles. A certain dose of ambiguity is dialectically created to be later resolved into mental unity. Shaggy Dog A BEHAVIOR MOll[FlCAnON LABORATORY The constructs of the prison are somewhat peculiar. Some not so outstanding features do not make the least economical sense, and are often totally out of phYsiological order. But these features, when viewed from a psychologi­ cal angie, begin to take on new meaning. For example, the prison is minced into small sections and subsections, divided by a system of elec­ tronic and mechanical grills and further rein­ forced by a number of strategically locked steel doors. Conceivably, the population can be sectioned off quickly in times of uprising. But even for the sake of security the pr ison is laced with too many doors. Every few feet a prisoner is confronted by one. So he must await per­ mission to enter or exit at almost every stop. A man becomes peeved. But this is augmented by the constant clanging which bombards his brain so many times a day unti! his nervous system becomes knotted. The persistent reverberation doesn't function in that way. The ,t",d;,";" ;s not meant to produce move­ two poles are kept far apart so that becomes Vls/ble. image 1 always had in mind was that jumping a gap. If you pull the elec­ far apart, there will be no spark. If too close together, there will be a con­ : too simple. But if they are just in position, you'll get fft, fft., fft. and jumps are , the furthest extension will jump. I kept experimenting distance between image, sound, dialogue so that the spark will the furthest, 'SL: How do you actually create this distance? LS: I make visual puns on verbal ideas, The metaphor of Rose's Vogue type of decoration, of Interior decoration, is the decoration of one's mind in the light of romanticism and the attempt at splitting it. The split is done with a sword and so we use an axe as a joke because , axe of course alludes to guitar, and one says "one's axe," one's thing, one's weapon. wanted to translate this I as a visual joke. SL: In other words, you literalize the metaphor 'in order to create a dramatization. This is quite a perverse use of the traditional metaphor. You don't assirru7ate the two terms, you don't substitute one term for another, you simply keep them side by Side, and this produces the spark! LB: We set up a pattern o{ this"'- this= this, etc., and the idea is that it wi!! go on for ever. SL: The more equal, LB: The more it remains itself. A perfect example of this pattern is when Clover, the child, is talking about the Art World. JoAnne says: "See yourself as a heavyweight" and the boxing begins. This is just the style of assoda tion 1 wanted to establish. There is a woman speaking in a boxing metaphor and actually using Muhammed Ali's measurements. The metaphor for the heavyweight is a copy of an Eastern dance image, a certain stance with the head bent over and arm raised. Simu\· taneously the pUnching bag is used as a bass drum and dealt with musically, child, consciousness of the So Clover, the Art World, is per­ ceiving herself as a heavyweight, a masculine image being spoken of by a woman who herself is a heavy using a traditional Eastern metaphor with a very hteral metaphor of the tends to resurrect and reintorce me sail!'" u,<.",,, feeling which introduced the individual to the Marion environment. It is no coincidence. This system is designed with conscious intenl. Every evening the "control movement" starts. The loudspeakers, which afe scattered around the prison, resonate the signal: "The movement is on. You have ten minutes to make your move." The interior grill doors are opened, but the latitudes and limits of a man's mobility aTe sharply defined, narrowly constricted. His motion, the fluidity of his life, is compressed between time locks. There is a sense of urgency to do-what prisoners usually do-nothing. At the end of the ten-minute limit, the speakers blare out: "The movement is over. Clear the corridor." The proceedings stop. Twenty minutes later the routine is repeated, and so on, until a man's psyche becomes condi­ tioned to the movement/non-movement regi­ mentation, and his nerves jingle with the rhyth­ mic orchestration of steel clanging steel. It is, in prisoners' words, "part of the program"-part of a systematic process of reinforcing an uncon­ ditional fact of a prisoner '5 existence, I.e. that he has no control over the regulation and orientation of his own being. In behavioral psychology, this process is called "learned help­ lessness"-3 derivative of Skinnerian operant conditioning (commonly called "learning tech­ niques"). In essence, a prisoner is taught to be helpless, dependent on his overseer. He is taught to accept, without question, the overseer's power to control him. But the omnipotent is also omnipresent. Nothing escapes Marion's elaborate network of "eyes". Between t.V. monitors, prisoner spies, collaborators, and prison officials, every crevice of the prison is overlaid by a constant watch. Front-line officers, specially trained in the cold, calculated art of observation, watch prisoners' movements with a particular meticulo)lsness, scrutinizing little details in behavior patterns, then recording them in the Log Book. This data provides the staff with keys on how to manipu­ late certain individuals' behavior. It is feasible to calculate a prisoner's level of sensitivity from the information; so his vulnerability can be tested with a degree of precision. Some Behavior Modification experts call these tests "Stress Assessment"; prisoners call it harrassment. In some cases, selected prisoners are singled out for one or several of these "differential treatment" tactics. He could have his mail turned back or "aCCidentally" mutilated. He could become the object of regular searches, or even his visitors 52 American boxer related contrapunctually to a woman in sweats using a punching bag as an instrument. Nothing is left where it is, it is always jumped to another metaphor. Sl: Your metaphors are not used to mean anything, only to produce another event, which in turn becomes another metaphor. L B: Ultimately the line is a circle, all of these events wi!! encircle the area of perception and I perceive more precisely my own energy inside that circle. Sl: could be "stripped searched". These and more tactics are consistent with those propagated by one Dr. Edgar Schein. Behavior modification at Marion consists ofa manifold of four techniques: I) Dr. Edgar Schein's brainwashing methodology, 2) Skinnerian operant conditioning; 3) Dr. LevillSon's sensory deprivation design (i.e. Control Unit) and 4) Chemotherapy or drug therapy. These techniques are disguised behind pseudonyms and under the philosophical rhetoric of correction. It's like the Interpretation of Dreams,. but without the interpretations! In a dream also language is dramatized according to what Freud calls "considerations of represent­ ability." Abstract expressions afe turned into graphic, pictorial language which accounts for the apparent absurdity of the dream. But the pictures, for Freud, are to be interpreted since they simultaneously serve the interests of condensations and censorship. For him there is a truth of the dream and whatever the complexity of the transpositions, he wl1l end up zeroing upon a definite, "originar meaning to the exclusion of any other. What you do in Shaggy Dog, on the other hand, is to extend the process of metaphorization to the point where it doesn't really matter where you started from, and what meaning can be derived fram it. The technique itself becomes the truth. LB: I'm definitely not trying to get another language from the same story, this is very dear, Sylvere. It's not telling a story in a secret language. It's aU circular and that's very much the way [ Sl: perceive reality. Mahou Mines has a reputation for being essentially language-oriented. But you seem to do your utmost to upset the linearity of narra" (ive through a variety of dramatic means. This is a curious way of putting language at the center. LB: I like to write the script so it says every· myself to thing. And then I want to commit performance where language is completely secondary to the visual and dramatic dynamic. I prefer the acting experience where you lose half the lines rather than concentrating on getting all the little gems out. I have a perverse attitude about dialogue in that I do not really get off on reading it as it is intended to be read, but reading it the way it is not intended to be read. My intent is to both understand the Hne HISTORY QF' THIS BEHAVIOR MODrnCATION LABORATORY In 1962 at a meeting in Washington, D.C. between social scientists and prison wardens, Dr. Edgar Schein presented his ideas on brainwashing. Addressing the topic of "Man Against Man: Brainwashing", he said: "In order to prodUce marked changes of behavior andlor attitude, it is necessary to weaken, undermine, or remove the supports of the old patterns of behavior and the old attitudes. Because most of these supports are the face-to­ face confirmation of present behavior and attitudes, which arc provided by those with whom dose emotional ties exist, it is often necessary to break those emotional ties. This can be done either by removing the individual physically and preventing any communication with those whom he cares about, or by proving to him that those whom he respects aren't worthy of it and, indeed, should be actively mistrusted." Following DI'. Schein's address, then·director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, James. V. Bennett, commented," . . . one of the things we mllst do is more research. It was indicated that we have a large organization with some 24,000 men in it now and that we have a tremendous opportunity here to carry on some of the experimenting to which the various panelists have alluded. We can manipulate our environment and culture. We can perhaps undertake some of the techniques Dr. Schein discussed. Do things on your own. Undertake a hule experiment wilh what you can do with the Muslims. There's a lot of research to do. Do il as individuals. Do it as groups and let us know the , results. ) tcfer to create a double meaning. ;ilild to expose �t an attitude toward the line in o .·; ;·>Your method�associating, or rather dis� ·-.��fPciating�is also consistent with the ikistenCe of a company such as Mabou tJltifJs. If you had to constantly tighten up your mtitiJrial, a collective work would somehow Mftiper you; but if you can add up elements, then 'the existence of 8 group becomes invalua­ ble. The more varied the persons involvet!. the ri��er the result. La: The three animations we have done so far are in fact an experiment to define a contem­ porary reality for choral theatre. This is also what Andrei Serban and Peter Brook are doing. But I wanted to take an altoQether dif­ ferent tack because contemporary stylizations cif the chorus in theatre are all historical. What I gradually understood through the animations is that choral theatre is alive and well inside of popular lyricism. The verbal extensions that "lead" singers make are even more highly styled than Greek or Shakespearian readings, and yet they are perfectly grounded emotional· IV. They don't seem to have that fake remove that a plotted historical reading would have. Sl: T. S. Eliot wanted to recreate a choral entity by making it nearly invisible, You make it Visible simply by putting it in its proper modern context. la: The trick is that the true bodV of choral lyric expression and choral dramatic expres­ sion is an electronic manipulation. It is useless for an actor to figure out how to approximate these effects when the correct electronics will give you their perfect rendering. SL: Did you feel you were making a parody of the med/a.) I once had an ar.qument over this point. I don't think you did. What can create this impression is probably that different styles keep interrupting each orher. LB: There was no need to criticize the media, The wonderful thing about electronics is that it produces its own irony bV its gloss. You can always tell that it is an electronic reading and this allows YaH to separate. It allows you to feel an overwhelming emotional response and still you are conscious of how this response has been manipulated, You feel the machine at work. So you reaily do get a double expe­ experiment set up by the Cuhan rience, You can totally indulge and you can be � on e asked if we were interested in moving an J(i totany objective at the same time. People of 5c\'eral circular ("I-I! eavily armed u:lllra! guardhO\!�e. WfT(' rardy altcmpt(:d ILl\, G overnm ent \ houses with do AU work was , audience and Ruth said, Yes, from one place EXPERIMENTATION IN ACTION to another. That's the best definition of what we tried to do. Sl: That But in order to move people from one place to another, you need to move them first. lB: Identify and drop identity, never commit oneself to the reality of the drama . . . It is a very crazy position because ying is always changing into yang, black is always becoming white is becoming black, inanimate becoming animate and inanimate again. Reality is the energy of the transformation and only the energy of the transformation. Sl: If it had been a parody, there would have been such a distance that you woulnd't have been able to move people. They just would have stayed in place. So you had to play the game. lB: was results" 15 years ago. Since then "the have been compiled and evaluated many times over; and all but one of Dr. Schein's suggested techniques have been left intact at Marion-along with the addition of a few new features. According to the Bureau of Prisons' policy statement (OcL 3 1 , 1967) whiCh, after a test period, finally sanctioned experimentation on prisoners, the benefit from ally experiments must be "clear in terms of the mission and collateral objectives or the Bureau of Prisons" and "for the advancement of knowledge." In other words, prisoners are expected to feel inspired the at thought of "advancing knowledge" to benefit science and corrections. Bur what prisoner knows that he is aiding and Play the game while showing the game. abetting the development of Behavior be used Play it well, but show it perfectly. If you play it Modification poorly, you don't have a good enough game to controlling and manipulating not only O1her entice peopie. If you are clever enough to get people really empathetically involved and then you disengage, you've produced a prisoners, but techniqw:s also to in segments of the public? Besides other things. he is denied knowledge of small what he is i!wo!ved in-or rather forced into. trauma of sorts where people in one instant The truth of Behavior Modification is that i t is can see and feel the entire process of their applied to pri�oners secretly and sometimes 55 as it develops and disengages. be tied on and then cut off to be is such an in­ that it forces you to respect it. a way not to drown. It is a way of the ocean but I'm going to do to stay on top of it. So I'm go- because he dealt with language deal with a variety of dramatic you can well afford to keep the straight (the sound track, Rose:� stIli cutting it up with all the styles. Recipe through sentimentality for about 3 or .�:��;:��:��'; , then somebody would start to giggle, ) SL: LB: you can fee! a peeling away of con­ a realization of the sentimental that had gone on. The manipula- The stupidity of the media is in its depth. There's a difference between what I am trying to do, and parody, It's closer to the idea of ready-made. I tried to take culture as an emotional ready-made. Now you can only show an emotional ready·made dramaticany if you have a perfect representation or "reading" of the emotional cliche as it is manifest in the American consciousrless. Without technique, SL: I was in 8 studio the other day whl1e they were making a record. They had this incredible Synthesizer and I understood a lot more about Shaggy Dog and what William Burroughs rightly calls "Studio Reality." Not one thing that will eventually come out in the record belonged to the original. Actually, there was no original. Every single split sound had been manipulated. It is only retrospectively that you Can grant a record with a unr1y, as if a real it could never have been shown. remotely (via manipulation o f the environment). At Marion these techniques are applied for punitive purposes, and only one subsection of the prison population is allowed any relief. First, a man's emotional and family ties are broken by removing him to the remote area of southern Illinois and by enforcing a rule whereby he can't correspond with community people within a 50 mile radius. Sometimes the rule slackens, but when the correspondence expresses ideological perspectives it is enforced more strictly. Families of prisoners who move into the area are often discriminated against and harrassed by gov­ ernment agencies. Visitors complain of being in· timidated by prison officials, especially when the visits are interracial. Children are repressed in the visiting room. And on three occasions, a man's wife who had travelled from Puerto Rico was stripped and searched. This incident caused great concern among prisoners because it could happen to any one of their, wives, mothers or children. Another tactic used to break a prisoner down is to punish him by removing family and friends from his Visiting list, or by placing him on restrictive visits. These types of visits are conducted in an isolated, partitioned booth across a telephone. Such restrictions often discourage families from visiting, especially when they have to travel long distances to visit. Officially, dose family ties are encouraged; practically, they are being severed. And more often than not, a man's family is looked upon and treated with the same disdain as a "criminal" . Another method of separating prisoners from friends and outside supporters is the two-faced campaign waged by the prison administration. On the one side prisoners are told they have been totally rejected by society and that even those who "preten.d" to be interested in prisoners are "only using prisoners for their own selfish benefit." By this a prisoner I::; supposed to believe he was never a partof a community or of society in general, that his lies among the people were never legitimate and that their interest in him is a fraud. On the other side, a brutish, bestial, and "sociopathic" image of prisoners is presented to the public. This further isolates the prisoner and makes him more dependent on the prison authorities. But discernment into this sophisticated system is the furthe�t thing from a prisoner's imagination, or even his comprehension. It is impossible for him to conceive that he is being reduced in the eye-sight of humanity to the level of an amoeba and placed under a microscope. 56 band had physically played somewhere, at some point in a studio and produced the record that you hear. The whole thing is talslfy made up. LB: It should be technically possible soon not even to have the artist in the studio. You will just pick up voices off old records and con­ struct the tones on a synthesizer in order to produce a complete pop record. You don't even need a singer. The cliche 1 throw at people sometimes is that you can't say "I love you" anymore without an echo chamber. Because it isn't true without an echo chamber. The echo chamber has captured the myth of the expression more clearly than the human voice. SL: And at the same time it is the echo of something that hardly exists anymore. An echo of an illusion. LB: It's illusion echoing illusion. SL: But if you look at it backwards, you can't help believing that there actuallv was an event. In the same way, you can follow a narrative� life as a narrative-and imagine that there ac� tually was such a thing as an individual in his own right. The individual as we conceive it (not as we live it! hardlv exists any more than the original performance of the record. It is a constant re-creation which echoes something that has practicallV ceased to exist. LB: The idea is that once all this is cleared away, there is nothing. Sl: There is the machine. LB: Yes. SL: You can purge vourself of the emotional response to the electronic machine, but not of the machine itself. LB; Now tell me what the machine wants: it wants to be left alone. SL: I think it wants to grab mare, to amplifV, to He can't understand why he feels the strange sensation of being watched; why it seems that "eyes" follow him around everywhere. He fears his sanity is in jeopardy, that paranoia is laking hold of him. It shows; the tension in his face, the wide-eyed apprehensive stares and spastic body movements. Among the general population, paranoia tends to spread like wildfire-from man to man. The induced state of paranoia is the primary cause of the violence which has : occurred throughout Marion's history. The pervasive "eyes" at Marion are not without the complement of "ears". Besides officers' eavesdropping and the inside spies trying to collect enough intelligence to make paroie, there are also listening devices out of view. The loudspeakers, for example, are also receivers, capable of picking up loose conver­ sations in the hallways, ceJlblocks and mess hall. Recently a strange device which someone called a "parabolic mike" was found. It is hard to figure out exactly how many more such devices arc scattered around the prison, embedded in the walt or placed behind cells. Sometimes a prisoner is confronted with the information in order to arouse suspicion about the people he has talked with. At other times, the information is kept secret among officials, and traps arc set. It is a standing rule among the prisoners never to let the enemy know what you are thinking. At Marion, a man is labelled by his ideas, and his "differential treatment" is plotted accordingly. What life in Marion boils down to is an essay in psychological warfare. An unsuspecting, une­ quipped prisoner-a prisoner unable 10 adjust and readjust psychologically and develop ade­ quate defense mechanisms can be taken off stride and wind up as another one of Marion's statistics. Prison officials and employees come weI! prepared, weB-trained, pre-conditioned, and well aware of the fact that a war is being waged behind the waUs. expand. That's what your play is all about. New territories, new markets, new posessions. But it is very dangerous to constantly swallow new grounds. You also have to digest it. The media orchestrates the digestion. The process is very dynamic and the assimilation soporific. Energy doesn't go against the system, the system is energy. It is the very sparks you uncover. But it keeps checking its own flow with an endless series of dams, of powerful representations that pass for reality, and ac­ tual/y become our reality. In bureaucratic BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION AND THE MIS{JSE OF THERAPY TECHNIQl.IES The behavioral schoo! of psychology is based on the premise that man is only capable of reacting to thc stimuli of his environment and that over a period of time of reacting in the same way to the same stimuli his behavior becomes habitual and sociopathic. However, through his cognition and rationalization, he can not only transform his environment, but also transform societies, you control things from the outside; the American way is by far more sophisticated. You simply market a new product or, for that matter, an obsolete product under new glossy wrappings. You erect new values as a positive object of control and it is the whole complex of emotions and desires that make up the normal neurotic individual. LB: There is . an accent called a mid-Atlantic accent that is neither American nor European, it is a media accent. II carries an emotional alti­ tude that makes catastrophes entertainment. This is the way reality is represented. The media can tell you how to live your life, how you are supposed to fee!, what you are sup­ posed to do and how you are supposed to die. A laugh track tens you what's supposed to be funny. It produces a somnambulistic circle, it creates room for certain power manipulations to take place in peace. The curious thing is that even the people who manipulate this imagery fall into it so that ultimately nobody is steering the car! himself into a different social being. Prisoners are making this transformation. There is a smail, elite group in the prison pop· ulation which is looked upon by the administra­ tion with great favor because the group shares the same basic ideals with the administration. The group's members see the priS01l authority as a "parent". They think of themselves as "residents" rather than prisoners or cap­ tives-because to change the word is to change the reality. At Marion, this program is called As­ klepieion-which !iteraHy means nothing. The prisoners call the group "graders" or "groder's gorillas", named after the psychologist who im­ plemented Dr. Schein's brainwashing program. The "groders" live in a speCial cellblock which, by prison standards, is plush. They are allowed luxuries and privileges which regular prisoners can't receive. They, however, are con­ vinced that they "earn" these things because they. are trying to do something to "better themselves". Generally, they look on other con­ victs with contempt. When confronted with evi­ dence that they are a brainwash group, they 58 SL: Representation is total manipulation. The emotional output of the media Is purely made up and in many ways, incredibly archaic. The technology of it, though, is everything but stupid. Actually, it is highly sophisticared. It only deals with surfaces. It manipUlates pieces of sound, fragments of voice� figments of fic­ tion in order to fashion full-fledged individual emotions. So If you kept breaking up its final imagery and thus disengage (rom its emotion� ality, you would stand a chance to recover reality. LS: The collective nature of our work fits in with this because it abstracts the persona across the entire piece. Almost any voice can be made a viable part of the consciousness as long as the center is this neutral stage of wood I that these neutral voices are talking to. SL: The voices llre talking to something, they are not talking to someone. L B : No one relates to anyone else in the entire piece. Nor do they in any of the animations. Ronald Laing wrote somewhere that schizophrenia is II voice such that you don't know who is speaking and who is being spoken to. ' think it is definitely a media voice. SL: Rose is speaking through the voices of all the performers, but who is Rose after all? And the performers, whom do they talk to? They don't talk to someone, nor do they talk to each other. Maybe they address themselves to the audience as an artistic or aesthetic concept. LB: They are actually talking to a point between themselves and the audience. The audience observes a conversation between the actor and a point In front of them. It is not direct address in the Brechtian sense. It is rhe. torical since it is spoken to the ideal abstract listener. The audience can observe this rhetor" ic for what it IS. SL: The collective entity is given an existence separate from the actual audience. Since the audience is not talked to, it has to rake a distance from the role it is supposed to assume. LB: The play is making up the audience precisely at the time the audience is making up the play. I don't like confrontations with an audience, with all the activist and political connotations this entails. OUT production is a liule purer. It is an abstract conflict, but it is also dramatic. It involves all sorts of games, tricks, humor. !�����������������!�� t IS a good · hOU�!. conduct reject the proof and accuse other prisoners of being envious. But the reality speaks for it�elf. The program employs a number of noted therapeutic techniques, e.g. Transactional Analysis, Synanon ' Attack-Therapy, psychodrama, Primal therapy, and Encounter Group Marathon sensitivity ' sessions. The administration's favorite is T.A. Essentially T.A. propagates the theory that people communicate on three different levels: parent, child and adult. These become character roles. It is up to the corresponding party to figure out which role the first party is playing. then communicate with the person on the proper counter-part level. What this technique actually does is create an artificial dichotomy between people, each straining to fit into the proper character role. Ultimately, it propagates the idea that the authorities always fit the role of a "parent" and the prisoners must submit to the role of a "child". Although some "graders" pretend this practice is a fakeout on "the man", it still is a real social practice. Other techniques include Dr. Schein's "character invalidation". These techniques are incorporated under the auspices of "Game Sessions" (Synanon Attack Therapy) and "Marathons" (Encounter Group sensitivity sessions). In "Game Sessions", members of the SL: The representation of Rose also is con­ stantly displaced: it is a dog represented by a puppet which itself represents a woman. LS: Which is often acted by three different men, one child, three different women. st: Even though the center is also represented by the Bunraku puppet. This series of displace­ ments from actual audience to idealized listener, from collective entitY to choral struc­ wre, from performers to individuals and from individual to puppet allows for a growing reali­ ration of the media manipulation But there is a point in the performance where the puppet is obviously nmnipu/ated for itself, made to dance for its own sake independently of any dramatiration. . lB: StYle is emphasized- annotated. To isolate and cool off the psychology. SL: The puppet, then, whatever her other ment to the theatre. What about the very last chorus of the aged was, moving. The nostalgic Dog? J thought, accused of some misdeed or shortcoming. Before he is allowed a chance to ex-plain (Which is considered as only more lying), he is barraged by dirty-name calling until he confesses or "owns up" to his shortcomings. He is then accused of making the group go through a lot of trouble in having to pry the truth out of him, So, for this crime he is forced to apologize. "Marathons" are all·night versions of literally the same, except that they include loea: community people who come into the prison to be "trained" in the techniques. After so many hours of being verbal1y attacked and denied sleep, a person "owns up" to anything and accepts everything he's told. After being humiliated, he is encouraged to cry. The group These techniques ex-plolt the basic weaknesses then shows its compassion by hugging him and telling him that they love him. functions, represents simultaneously commit­ sequence of Shaggy group accuse a person of playing games, not being truthful with the group, lying; or he is quite You seem to have deliberately Jet pathos set in. Did you want at this point to shift the emphasis from media stupidity to some sort of existentlal meditarion·- to go full circle from Rrose to Selavy? produced by an alienating society, i.e. the need to be loved, cared about, accepted by other people, and the need to be free. In turn, they are transmuted into "submission and sub­ serviency", the type of behavior conducive to the prison officials' goal of control and manipUlation. The "groders" will not resist or complain. Nor will they go on a strike to seek redress of prisoners' grievances. They are alienated from their environment, and their LB: That at their age they could still be so to­ emotional interdependency welds and insulates tally committed to thiS sort of romantic energy them into a crippled cohesion (of the weak was, 1 thought, pure dramatic irony, irony ulti­ bearing the weak). They aren't permitted to dis­ mately concerned in not being funny so much cuss these tC(:hniques outside the group because as being moving. Beyond that point, there is a one of the pre-conditions for admittance is a final commitment to a cathartic experience, a traditional experience. No matter how much art IS played with in the piece, it IS not a final bond to secrecy. Yet almost anyone can spot a commitment to art, as most conceptual the&­ Some years ago, the pri�on popUlation wanted tres would do, it is a final commitment to the to do them bodily harm because they allowed "groder' because the light has gone out in his eyes. theatre. It's anowing empathy to grow and you themselves to be used as guinea pigs, and needed almost a classic Brechtian moment to because the techniques developed would be used cut it at that particular point. Sl: This is the power failure. lS: Yes. The power failure is the classic meta­ on other prisoners and other people in the outside world. Today, they are generally looked upon as menta! enemies. So prisoners just leave them alone. Nevertheless, the brainwashing phor for it all the way through. Seeing the light through the power, I guess, is the game that is' techniques are still finding their way into communities ill the outside world-under a being played between the lighter and the lighted. And the "groders" still have hopes of joining SL: But the light that you see during the power faifure, the actual lighter held by an number of pseudonyms other than Asklepieion. these programs when spread. They will they arc become sufficiently "therapeutic technicians". This is what Dr. Groder laid out in actor, is still part of the power. his "Master Plan", the utilizing of prisoners as L8: And it is held by your own hand. couriers of the technique back into the Wendy Oarke Aron meant when he testified at the Love Japes control revolutionary attitudes in the prison community. It is also what former warden Ralph 1975 Bono vs. Saxbe trial (10 dose the Control Unit) that "the purpose of the Marion control unit is to system and in the society at large". What the "groders" fail to realize is that even as "thera_ pists" they will remain under observation long after their release from prison-under what is': called "post-release follow_' eUphemistically through. " CHEMOTHERAPY: DRUGS THE MISUSE OF Chemotherapy is conducted four times daily at Marion. The loudspeaker announces: " Control medication in the hospital . . . pill line. " Valium, librium, thorazine and other "chemical billy-clubs" The 'love tapes', a series of 3mrn,vldeo"tapes, were made by participants of variOUS ages and ethnic backgrounds sitting alone in a room talk· ing about love white sentimental music ran in the background. The three following partici­ pants are from LA., Calif. KATHERINE. like gumdrops. way into the food. For example, the strange mon1h of December, 1974, recorded five unrelated, inexplicable stabbings. During the same time, eight prisoners suffered from hallucinations in the "hole" and had to be treated (with thorazine injections). Drugs are 55. often prescribed for minor ailments and are I just came from the therapist and I think it was the last time. He asked me what's going on, as a matter of fact I had to go to him, I had a deep depression, but it's over, and I said to him every thing is fine, the only thing is I wish I would be in love again, reaUy really deeply in love. And of course as the years pass and I get older, it's not as easy as it was when I was are handed out Sometimes the drugs mysteriously make their 16 and 18 and fel! in love all the time and thought that was the real commonly suggested to prisoners as a panacea for all the psychological i!!-effects of incarceration. Some drugs such as prolixin make prisoners want to commit suicide. Some attempt it; some succeed, THE END OF THE LINE: THE LONG·TERM CONTROL UNIT Segregation is the punitive aspect of the one, the big one. And funny enough when it's Behavior over then you think 'It can never happen again, euphemisticaUy referred In Modification program. to as It is "aversive and you are terribly sad and think it's over, never conditioning . " again. And there it is, around the corner there is conditioned to avoid solitary confinement, and someone else, and you think I was never as 10 do this requires some degree of conformity much in love as this time, No it wasn't that many times, of course, and it doesn't change as one gets older, ! get older. I wish ! would be 20 short, prisoners are and cooperation. But the "hole" remains open for what prison authorities and Dr. Schein call " natural leaders" . These prisoners can be pulled or 30 years younger, but I have the same feel· from population on "investigation" and held in ings and the same longings, maybe even more solitary so. And ! think gee wiz maybe this time I won't investigation is over. During the whole ordeal, make this or that mistake and, and ah, but he is not told what the inquiry is about-unless where is he? Where is he? Dh I can't complain I he is finally charged with an infraction of the confinement until the so-calJed have a lot of friends, good friends some who like rules. If the prison authorities think that the me and love me but that passionate feeling that Behavior is so important, that I would !ike to have. It's not enough to love it's even more important to love, that is a fantastic feeling. that just makes you Modification techniques will eventually work on the prisoner, he is sent (0 short-term segregation, If not, they use the last legal weapon in the federal prison system: the .. •,,eative, f:� 61 your long-term control unit. The long-term control unit is the "end of the line" in the federal prison system. Since there is i,)u bury yourself and maybe even overwork r· d do aU kinds of things and look fOf things, no place lower throughout all of society, it is the . 'ut, . . so I'm still hoping. The year is not com­ end of the line for society also, Just as the threat over. It's the 21st of December, the be­ 'Ietely of imprisonment controls society. so is Marion . . the control mechanism for the prison systems; 'Inning of winter. . ultimately the long-term control unit controls Marion. EGINA. 35. '. Usually a prisoner doesn't know specifically ell here I am getting to talk about love and I'm ' etting a little nervous cause it's a hard topic. why he ha� been sent to the Control Unit. And here are many ways that I feel love. I feel love he Usually doesn't know how long he will be . i:. r my children, I feel love for my women there. A prisoner is told he is being placed on friends. I just experienced a nice new affair. 30-day observation and that he has the right to i,That experience was "L OVEly" . It made me be appeal the decision if he wishes. Until recently, Mil touch with old, old romantic feelings of being most prisoners simply waived the appeal because n love, feeling happy and anxious and excited, a they were given the impre'l.�ion that they would ' time when I wasn't thinking of anything in par­ be getting out soon. ticular, but I just had this wonderful feeling. And In the control unit a prisoner does only two it's !ike exhilarating. ExhHara1ing. It's a nice fee!· things-recreate and shower. Although Jng. And all of a sudden you get a feeling from everyone recognizes that the work i,; the other person that it's over. And I've experi­ exploitative, it is generally considered a 'enced a collusion with me and my fantasies' and privilege. The rest of the control unit prisoners my illusions. And the reality is that his feelings spend 23 V1. hours a day locked in their cells ended before my feelings ended and it was hard (which are smaller than the average dog' kennel). to deal with, it was very hard. But because I He sees the Control Unit committee for about 30 have other love relationships with women, other seconds once a month to receive a decision on men, my children, older people, flowers, trees his "adjustJ1lent rating". He may see a the sky, I guess just feelings, I was able to work caseworker, the counselor or the educational through with some anxious feelings of depres­ supervisor for books. Other than' that, he sion and sadness. And love just does create all deteriorates. The cell itself contains a flat steel slab jutting of those wonderful wonderful feelings that we from the wall. Overlaying the slab is a one-inch dream about, fhat we read about, that we see in piece of foam wrapped in coarse plastic. This is films. There's that old song I remember about a supposed to be a bed. Yet it cuts so deeply into stranger across a crowded room, and I still have the body. After a few days, you are totally that Ulusion that someday I'm going to meet that numb. Feelings become indistinct, emotions stranger and he's going to appear- It's that old unpredictable. Cinderella story, it is. I really bought into the Besides these methods of torture (which is fantasy of what newspapers and magazines and what they are), there is also extreme cold films have told me that I should feel about love. conditioning in the winter and lack of And my real feelings when I express them, es· ventilation in the summer. Hot and cold water pecially my last affair, that person I think was manipulation is carried out in the showers. shOCked that I could be so open and so vulner· Shock waves are administered to the brain when able. And it was a wonderful time, 2 wonderful guards bang a rubber mallett against the steel months with him, different feelings, different bars. Then there is outright brutality, mainly in emotions. It was very nice and I hope to find the form of beatings. The suicide rate in the someone else again soon. Control Unit is five times the rate in genera! population at Marion. ElIOT, 30. At the root of the Control Unit's Behavior You know I cry in movies sometimes over the Modification Program, though, is indefinite weirdest things, but then when I want to, you confinement. This is perhaps the most difficult know, when ! really want to fee! something I aspect of the Control Unit to communicate to can't, and I know I should, and I want to, but I'm locked in, you know. It's like with your fam· the public. Yet a testament to this policy was a ily, you know, you love them because somehow man named Hiller "Red" Hayes. After 13 years in solitary confinement (nearly six in the control they're your family, but I don't reaUy like them. .: . "ark, . �I' � ;1 that helps your art, that helps that makes your life. Yes if it's not there 62 You know, somehow would I really love 'em if I just ran into them on the street, nope. But there are people that I want to love, but somehow I just can not let it out. I'm still not at the stage where I can feel love. And I reaUy want to. And so people come and they go and you want to love them, but you never could tell them that. And so they leave and they never know that you loved them. So people end up thinking that you're something you're not. Because you never could express yourself. You couldn't love unit), he became the "boogie man" of the prison system-the living/dying example of what can happen to any prisoner. The more he deteriorated in his own skeleton, the mOre prisoners could expect to wane in his likeness. He died in the unit in August, 1977. Tn essence, the Unit is a Death Row for the living. And the silent implications of Behavior Modification speak their sharpest and dearest ultimatum: CONFORM OR DIE. them and you couldn't hate them. Because when you love them you can hate them. It's the same way, I COuldn't love them-I have a prab· lem hating them. So then you say, what the hell do I really feel? So you let it all out in a movie, over some made·up situation, when you get tears in your eyes. Because you wish you could at least be !ike the movie. I. Write letters urging that the Marion control unit be dosed completely to: Judge James Foreman, U.S. District Court, 750 Missouri Avenue, E. St. Louis, Illinois 62202. Infor_ mation: Nafional Committee to Support the Marion Brothers 4556a Oakland, St. Louis, Missouri 63110 Ol'ftll.'t'El!ttrle $hoeil,l!l!it(lPY ��(/r<;h)I I" (lvld.." <H(<I,,,,I(> fi...."''I(>II<>od$, Sttlnd, ..d �o;k. Antidisestablishment Totalitarism Sylvere I,OTRINGER: How did you get to rock? POLICEBAND: Mostly through the tech­ nology of it, being saddled with the various instruments and the noise and the ampli­ fier. lust being attracted to it as an object. S: Did you start working by yourself from the very beginning? PB: No. I found out what the macpines were capable of. They led me straight to Policeband. It was almost as if the techno­ logy applied its own politics. S: Are you interested in politics? PH: I like the news that comes out of poli­ tics. The one statement that this happened or that happened that I get over the radio. Politics is an exchange of paper. I hate paper, the feel of it. S: Didn't you write before? PH: I did, but not on papeL On tapes. S: Why did you call yourself Policeband­ a collective name? PB: I see myself as being a lead singer with back·up musicians. The buzzers and the amplifiers are quite out of control. They definitely are like a band. S: The text you read is not yours. Do you choose it at random? PO; I borrow randomly hut it's my random S: What is your criterion of choke? PB: It has to do with time, filling up the space. It comes through the headset. I repeat it or I improvise with it. Mostly I re· peat it. It comes from various sources. Directly from the police themselves, or from something I myself have said into a tape recorder, or directly from a radio. I have it plugged directly into a radio so that I can recite the weather if I wish. Or they have these scanners that enable you to monitor the police communications and the F.B.I. as well. The sources are very immed­ iate and I have to react to them immediate­ ly. It's the raw material I respond to directly. I incorporate it. I need it. Without it I would just be another cabaret pianist. S: What about the police? PB: They're always looking for trouble. It's always looking for them. They're obliged to respond to very random input. Random violence. They don't know where its coming from or why. S: Don't they also produce it? PO: They produce it themselves if they get bored. S: Do you think the police are that repressed? PO: The police are incredibly repressed. They're obliged to uphold all sorts of rules and regulations that they feel alien to. They'd just rather go out and do whatever they feel like. I know it. And yet, they can't do it. It's not like Mexico where you can kill the criminal immediately upon discov­ ery. Quite frequently the crime becomes irrelevant to whatever procedure follows it or instigates it, or it just becomes a theatri­ cal procedure. It just continues in the theatre of the courts and right back to the streets again where it starts all over. S: So what is not theatre in this society? PH: In our society, nothing. America is the entertainment capital of the world. S: At an levels? PH: I think so. S: Sex is theatre? PO: Don't you know it. S: What about drugs? PO: I don't take drugs. S: You never did? PO: No, I'm an athe1ete and drugs oilly interfere with the body's ability to maintain its own sense of self. . The body, it's s-o powerful, it's a fascist, the b-ody. S: Why do you say that? PO: Its completely organized, and if you abuse it, it beats you. It's incredibly oppres­ sive and then when you start trying to con­ trol it, you start looking for others to control . . Schizophrenia is a solution, o-f course, because It al!ows you to jump back and forth from position to position without any sense of self. Hopefully one position will click. It's like the ,�canner. I tell you, you should look at Ihis piece of equipment. It just bounces back and forth until it finds something to signal into and it just stops i f there's information coming over that wave· length. So, in effect, my aCl's quite schizophrenic. Eli C. Messinger Violence to the Brain The theories Gild techrio logy of medicine and psychiatry have long been u�ed to buttress the views of, and to maintain sociol control by those who hold pollt. icol power. The technical mecms hove changed from one hlstar. libl area to the next. The more !ffiportont techniques now In use Ifldude psychoactive drugs, brain behavior surgery, tflSdif!cgtlon techniques and electroshock therapy. The theory that personal violence Is due to broi" drs, fonction and that it should be treated by brain surgery It pre· sented by Vernon Mark and Fronk Ervin In Violence "nd fhe I)roln. ' They retommonct the development of moss str"oning and treatment programi '(jf in. dlvlduals rone to vlolet-nt@ bee-cuse (I brain dysfundlorl. . The pseudo sclentific grgurnll'nts they gdvgnce gre not unique. A thegry of brain dysfunction has been advanced to explain the 50· cglled hyperactivity of childhood. Both theories gttribute behavior· 01 problems solely to on organk couse, in both coses, the treot· ment is organic. While brain surgery for behavior contrai ls not common at this time In the United States , several hundreds of thousands of American f Eli C. Messinger, M.D., Is (I Child Psychiatrist ot the Metropolitan Hospitol in New York City. Dhvid Cooper The Invention of Non-Psychiatry Nciti-j:J!iYchiatry is coming into being. Its birth has been a tlifficult affair. Modern psychiatry, as the pseudo-medical action of detecting faulty ways of living Iive� and the technique of their categorization and their correction, began in the: eighteenth century and developed through the ninet@€fltfi ttl its consum­ mation in the twentieth century, Hartd itt hand with the rise of capitalism it began, as a pflhcipai agent of the destruction of the absurd hOf'ltlS, fears, joys and despair of joy of P!!opie who tdiJsed containment by that system. Hand in hand with capitalism in its death agonies, over the coming years (it might be twenty Qr thirty years), psychiatry, after familialization and education, one of the principal repressive devices (with its mote sophisticated junior affiliate psychoanalysis) Of the bOufgeois order, wi!! be duly interred , Thtl ttH)v�ment, schematically, is very simple: psy· chilmy, fully institutionalized (put in place) by a state system ll!med at the perpetuation of its labour supply, using HI¢ persecution of the non-obedient as its threat tb make 'them' conform or be socially eliminated, was attacked in the year 1960-by an anti-psychiatric movement which was a sort of groping anti·thesis, a resistance movement against psychiatric hospitals and their indefinite spread in the community sectors, that was to lead dialectically to its dialectical issue which we can only cal! non-psychiatry, a word that erodes itself as one writes it. Non-psYchiatry means that profoundly disturbing, incomprehensible, 'mad' behaviour is to be contained, incorporated in and diffused through the whole society as a subversive source of creativity, spontaneity, not 'disease'. Under the conditions of capitalism, thi.':! is clearly 'impossible'. What we have to do is to accept this impossibility as the challenge. How can any chal­ lenge be mea:;:��d by less than its impossibility. The non-existencq"qf..psychiatry will only be reached in a transformefj'isociety, but it is vital to start the work of . de-psychiatrj�.ti()n now, After being.�ufficiently fed and housed, there is the radical need .tQ , expreSs oneself autonomously in the world and to lwye ,one's acts and words recognized as one's own by at �st one other human being. The total ideal autonomy of npt needing one word of confirma­ tion from anyone else remains ideal. While some people certainly find great satisfaction in a certain type of productive work, there are immense needs for confirmed, autonomous expression that exceed such satisfaction. But this personal expression becomes in­ creasingly difficult. Madness becomes increasingly impracticable because of extending psycho­ surveillance. Orgasmic sexuality is destroyed by the hours and quality of labour and, at least for the bourgeoL�ie, is replaced by the passivity of po�nographic spectacle or Thai massage. People attend classes or 'therapy' for corporal expression. Universal, popular artistic expression (such as Japanese haiku poetry -or the formerly universal popular ' invention of song and dance) is overshadowed by the professionalization and technologization of the specialized art forms deformed by the market. :. ;' The key question for revolutionaries is how to avoid the recuperation of pcqpie and their autonomous expression (and for that matter, of all new revolution­ ary ideas) by the state " system (as ·opposed to the recuperation of invalidated persons and ideas by the people). The question within this question centres on the word 'avoid', AvqJding here involves the systematic abolition of all !�stitutional repression, but we are focusing here on tIle abolition of all psycho­ technology-a wider question than the abolitiQn of psychiatric institutions inside and outside hospitals by . the forms of non-p.sychiatric action. One should understand by psycho-technology not only psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis and alternative therapy, but also the mystifying techniques of the mass media (one has only to follow the desperately, and accelerated, mystifying 'moral' convolutions in the editorials of the capitalist press from day to day). Then reward and punishment doc­ trine (or bribery and blackmail) of Kissinger-type for­ eign policies. The use of psycho-technology in law COurts, prisons, and by the military, Technology is for things, not people. In a bookshop in now fashionable Cannery Row in California I found, after an ironic display of all the works of Steinbeck, the department of best-selling technology. The books (and I ' m certainly not implying that they are on the same level) included treatises on school_age children have been diagnosed as h'!lvlng minimal brain dysfunction (MBO) and are treated with stimulant drugs: amphetamines, Dexedrine and Benzedrine, and methylpheni­ date or Ritalin. MBD: MEDICAL DISEASE OR SOCIAL STRATEGY? True medical diseases ore defined an onatomh:al, bio­ chemical or phVSiological grounds. They exist Indepen­ dently of the sadal setting. Dlobetes, for example, Is de­ fined by abnormalities In glucose metabolism. While the diabetic's sodal environment can influence the course af the disease, the abnormality in glucose metab­ alism, rather than the diabetic's sadal behavior, Indlcotes that diabetes Is present. In contrast, mast behavioral syndromes, Including MBD, ore diagnosed by a physician because of the subject's dissonance with the envlranment.' sadal This explains the puuling observa· tlon that the "symptoms af MBD" commonly subside during va­ cations fram school .. , The dahl used to establish the diagnosis of MBD ate highly sublectlve. The Judgment by a teacher or parent, for example, will depend an his/her criterion for hyperactivity and the sadal setting where the activity was observed. Even the direct obser­ vation af a child is Influenced by the dinicion's skill and exper­ ience, the meaning of the exami­ nation to the child, the physical setting, and the child's physical and mental state at the time af the abservatlon. The following Ibt of "symp­ toms" appears in a pamphlet written for htachers, doctors and counselors prepared by Dr. James Satterfield, director af the Gateways Hasp/tal Hyperkinetic Clinic: Overadlvlty: unusual energy, Inab/lty fa slf stl/l In the classroom and 0' mealtime, tolk· ing au' 01 tUM In the class, dl5rupting the don. Oistradlblllty: naf geHing work done In school. daydreaming In the classroom, tuning out teachers and parents when 'hey try to give dlredlons, being unable '0 'ake pari in <aNi games and other games such as Monopaly. 68 Impulsiveness: being unable to save up money for something that Is badly wonted, blurllng out secrets or things thot ore known to be tactless, saying $osty things to teacher lust to ,how off. be/fablllty: getting very wound up and OVerexcited and more ac­ tive around groups of children or In sflmulatlng new situations.' It is cleor that this Is really a list of behavior c::onsidered unaccept_ able to teachers, pClrents or other adults. The child wl10 is at odds with the educotionol system Is sent fa the medical.psychiatrlc system. There a classroom behavior or learning difficulty 15 diognosed as MBD; the difficulty Is re-deflned as a medical or psychiatric problem. The child 15 returned to the classroom with a diogn«�5tic lobel, and fTequently with a chemical control agent. EARLY DETECTION Early detection of disease is q valid prh1ciple In m"dicine. However If lesse", accura�y I" diagnosis. Mark clI1d Ervin wrote their poak for the generql public because they wanted publlt; sup­ port for the es,abllshmel'lt of early defection programs: We need fo develop on "early warnil'lg test" of limbic brain '.,metion to detfJc:t tn,)!e humans who have q low threshhold for /mPllls/ve vlol�mce, and we need b�tter and more effe�tlve me'''. ods of 'reaflng '''em once we have found out who they are. Violence Is a public healt" prob. lem, qnd the malor thrust 0' any pl'l,)gram dealing with v/o/ence mud be toward its prevenflon-a goal that will mah a betfer and soler world for us a/I.' Th,,'f urge prograff1S to identify persons "as being potentially violent." The reductio ad absurdum ot this reasoning Is the theory thpit "hid. den brain disea�e" can �al,l�e violence; All the per�on5 we have de­ ,(ribed fhu� for were known to have brain dls,05e, which, as w!!' have shown, PH,veJ4 to �e related to their violent behav/�r. But what of those Individuals who are uncontrollably violent but do not have epileptic seizures or other of brain obvious signs disease? . . . . /5 " ponible that they, '00, are suffering from an T.A. (Transactional Analysis), T.M. (Transcendental Meditation), E.S.T. (Erhard Seminars Training , not exactly electro-shock, E.CT.), Creative Fidelity, Creative Aggression, Provocative Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Prima! Scream, Encounter Therapy, the conducting of three-day 'Marathons', a form of deep:: massage, Bio-energy, Japanese Hot Tubs (you take off your clothes and enter them en groupe as part of liber.: ation). Then, 'Behaviour Mod' (the new generation) Skinner) on how to toilet-train your child in twenty4 four hours-···and then on the next shelf another book advertising a method of toilet-training your child in less than twenty-four hours! I've no doubt that after some of these experiences some people feel better, or begin to 'feel', or feel more 'real'-or whatever the ideals of capitalism prescribe for them. One day the United' States, together with the European countries of 'advanced llbera! democracy' (whose fascist nature will more rapidly and nakedly emetge), will have to stand on their own feet rather than sit on the back of the rest of the world, and then there will be another less easy and lucrative sort of 'reality' to face.' in the meantime there is a growing cultural imperialism, by which highly commercialized psycho· techniques are being insidiously imported into the poorer but more politically advanced countries of Europe and the Third World by professional liberators who go to the U.S. for crash courses in the latest techniques and return to their countries to reap the cash results. While this development is clearly not on the scale of exploitation by the multinational drujl: companies with their psychotropic drugs, its ideological content is significant. After psychiatry based 011 de-conditioning (in fact a sad re-con­ ditioning) or conventional psychoanalysis, there is the 'third force' of 'alternative therapy' 19 seduce the desperate who shun the first two. The ideology of personal salvation presents highly effective strategie� of de-politidzation. Once again, there are no personal problems, only political problems. But one takes 'the political' in a wide sense that refers to the deployment of power in or between socia! entities (including between the parts of the body of a person which incarnate certain social realities). Personal problems in the commonest sense reduce the political to things going on between one person and a few others, usually on an at !east implicit family model; problems of work, creativity and finding oneself in a lost society arc dearly politica! problems. Therapies and conventional psychoanalysis rein force 'oedipian' familialism and, whatever contrary intentions, exclude from the concrete field of action macropolitica! reality and the repressive !,''ystems that mediate this reality to the individual The word 'therapy' had better be banished because �. f its medical-technical connotation. But people still jwrn, noo-'radically', to talk with articulated words. �. . , ut it should not take many hours to say the few things ' at matter in one's life if the other person unstops his ' rs. Listening to someone in 'fuH flight of delusion' ,erie can effectively stop one's ears by trying to nterpret the 'content' of the words, or by the �jdiculous attempt to speak in the same language. The �ords attempt to express the inexpressible which is \b eyer the content of the words but always in the very ,precise silences formed in a unique way by the words, iso, unblocking one's ears, one listens to the silences in 'their preciseness and their speCificity. There is never 'any doubt that the 'deluded one' will know whether or hot one's ears are unblocked. Beyond that. with �paranoia', there ii! always the practical task of ascertaining the real past and present forms of persecution, Psycho-technological training. to fulfil its soda! purpose of mystification, tends to blind and deafen people to what should be obvious. Franco Basaglia and his associates recently set up a centre at Belluno. in a large country house in the Dolomites, to receive people from the' psychiatric hospital at Trieste who live for varying periods in a relatively de-institutionalized setting. One day while I was living in the house a man who had been a hospital­ ized withdrawn 'chronic schizophrenic' for over twenty years smashed the television set in the middle of a football match, and then three windows (to see the world 'outside' rather than the world 'in the box' etc. etc.). The point was that in the group situation of anger and fear he was not immediately 'dealt with' by a large injection of a neuroleptic drug (costing much more than occasional broken windows) but was taken on one side by one of the staff, who made no comment but opened his ears while the patient with great feeling told the history of his life for two hours. Of course the problem remained of finding a mode of insertion in the outside world after twenty years of systematic institutional incapacitation, but the point was that 'chronic schizophrenia' was abolished by the con­ junction of a more reasonable context, one or two acts, and a few more words and a lot more feeling -and by the persona! 'policy' on the part of someone to have 'open ears' rather than just the simple mystifi­ cation of 'open doors'. So now one says that psychiatrists have one option -either they kill themselves or we assassinate them�metaphorical!y of course.' What does t.hat mean? It means that one recogniZes just how difficult it is for someone formed, preformed, deformed as a professional psycho-technologist principally in the medical policing racket of psychiatry but also in the areas of psychoanalysis and psychology, social psy­ chology, 'socio-psychoanalysis' and so on, to change their life structures, which entail gaining money as part 0' abnormality syslemP' of 'he limbic Pressure Is also put on the practising physician to diagnose M80 early. The "symptoms" of MBO are very common, parti­ cularly in younger elementary school-age children. In a study of the entire Itindergarten through second-grade population of a Midwestern town, teachers went asked to rate the frequency of 55 behaviors.' In boys, restlessness was found In ,49 percent, distrac­ tibility In 48 percent, disruptive­ ness in 46 percent, short atten­ tion span In .:13 percent, and Inat­ tentiveness in 43 percent. Should nearly half the boys in the first three grades of a public school system properly be considered suspects for the designation MBo? THE NUMBERS GAME Another maneuver used by those who propose a medical model for violence and hyper­ activity is to exaggerate the magnitude of the problem. Mark and Ervin studied only a small number of patients with limbic brain disease. They stretched the significance of their limited clinical experience by referring to a paol o' many millions of Americans with brain disease who might be violence.prone, an implication that is clinically false. 'n a parallel fashion, millions of children are said to have MBD. When Lauretta 8ender surveyed the admissions to 8ellevue Hospital's children's psychiatric service, she found thot only 0.14 percent suffered from post· encephalitic behavior disorders, one of the few conditions in which brain injury directly causes disordered behavior.' Estimates of the incidence of M80 in the school-age population, however, run as high as 5 to 10 percent. Paul Wender, a prolific writer on the subiect, would apply thot diagnosis to almost any child who has the misfortune of being tttken to a child guidance dinic: With no further knowledge, any preadolescent child admitted to a child guidance clinic Is most probably In the category until proven otherwise. If, In addition, one knows that a child Is not bI�arre or retarded and has not been recent'y disturbed by a pre· sumably noxious environment, one e(ln moire the diagnosis wlfh some certo/nty. This Jlognodlc technique Jocks sub". nicety but Is quIt• •H.cll"•• • Effective for whom? The consequences Ofe very serious because Wender prescribes stirn· ulant drugs to all children he dlQgnoses as having MBD. Ritolln commonly causes loss of appe· tite, sleeplessness. irritobillty. and abdominal poln. Long·term use of Ritalin In higher doses, or of Dexedrine at all dose levels, can Interfere with normal growth! In rare cases, Ritalin has caused a toxic psychosis marked by hallucinations and bi:uHre behovlor. ,. Ritalin can COU5& an increase in heart rot. and blood pressure. The mQI" psychological ha:r:ord of medico_ t!em for children diognosed as having MBD Is thot they often come to view the drug as 0 magic pill which they feel they need for self�control. Indeed, thot Is how the drug company portroys Rltolin in Its advertisements for physldon prescribers: Here 15 a child who seems to get very Imle ou' of school. He con', sit ,#til. Doesn't toke dlredlons well. He's easily frustrated, elf­ titoble, often aggressive. And he's got 0 very shorl attention span .... He 1$ a victim of Minimal BraIn Dysfunction, a dlognosoble dlseose entity that genera.llv re­ sponds to treatment programs." Either millions of American schoal.age children suffer from a poorly defined and hord.to.diog· nose b roln disorder, or it Is in the interests of the medical profes. sion, the drug industry ond the school estoblishment to convince us thot this Is 50. The lobelling of school children os brain domaged 15 an example of what Williom Ryon calls blaming the victim. The individual Is blamed for the shortcomings of the sodol system, here the educotional system. The impetus for funda· mental sodal reform Is thereby blunted. The only chonge prompted by the blaming-the. victim Ideology Is the familiar formula of help for the victim. This Is usually garbed In human· Itorian terms of remedlotion, rehabilitotion and other com· pensatory programs. In all cases, the victims are labelled as pathological while the sodal sys· of the system. To make a dear enough rupture with the system means risking every security structure in one's life-and one's body and one's mind; family, house, insurance, highly acceptable social identity and highly acceptable means of making enough or more than enough money to live by, all these possessions that one cannot contain in one suitcase (pianos excepted). For some few professionals that has been an historic necessity, for others a temporary historical compromise is possible. We don't all have to have a total destructuring an the time (the 'suicide' of the psy­ chiatrist)�on the same side, and with total solidarity with the other madmen who are murdered. But if psy­ chiatrists don't destructure enough of the time they produce the necessity for their 'murder'. When in the early 1960s, in the course of various polemics in England. I produced finally the wretched and infinitely distorted term 'anti-psychiatry', there was no collective consciousness of the necessity of political involvement. In those years we were an isolated in our national contexts of work. Now there are thousands and thousands of us who begin to recognize a dialectic in our struggle through the growing solidarity of our action. There is a dialectic that proceeds from psychiatry through anti-psychiatry to non-psychiatry (or the final abolition of all psycho-technological methods of surveillance and control). The development of this dialectic is inseparable from the development of the class struggle. It does not, however, follow auto­ matically from the dialectic of the political revolution that leads from capitalism through socialism (whether achieved in some cases by the dictatorship of the proletariat , direct seizure of power by the working class with popular elements of the military. in other cases by guerrilla warfare (urban, rural) or in others by using the bourgeois democratic machinery. including turning the mystification of the electoral process against itself) to the classless society of communism that abolishes also the last elements of bureaucratic Antinon- dialectic does not power. The follow a political revolution because it follows a social revolution, against all forms of institutional repression that retains its own, highly variable, momentum. Those things that condition the variability of this momentum are made clear in the concrete struggle for social revolution in each country on the way to its national communism as the base of the only possible internationalism. If anyone finds an idealism or utopianism in this, one can only reflect that it is as utopian as the active aspirations of just about all human-kind. As the political revolution is against class (infrastructural) and national oppression, so social revolution is the struggle against institutional repression as we experience ourselves victimized by it wherever we are, the struggle against the mystification of our needs. If we begin to see madness as our tentative move to disalienation. and if we see the most immediately present forms of alienation as arising from the class division of society; there can be no psychiatry in fully developed socialism (i.e. in a society where the gap between political revolution and social revolution has been 'adequately' narrowed) and no form of psycho­ technology whatever in communist society. Such, in very crude outline. are the 'hypotheses for the non­ psychiatry' and the creation of the non- society. To fill in the outline and make it less crude depends on specific people and groups of people seizing conscious­ ness not only o f their oppression but of the specific modes of their repression in those particular institu­ tions in which they live as functioning organisms and strive to keep alive as human beings. The living, �al· pating and now palpable solidarity that they invent is what brings the vision down to earth. This solidarity as revealer of the concrete is what we witness today in some of the more authentic anti�and non-psychiatric strivings , We may say that anti- and non-psychiatric movements exist, but that no anti- or non-psychiatrists exist. any more than 'schizophrenics'. 'addicts'. tems which generate the path· ology ore left undisturbed. 1. VernOn H. Mark and Frank R. Ervin, VIolence and the BraIn. New York, HCJrper ond Row, 1970. Ide% g y 2. Thomas S%an, and Insanity. GClrden City, Doubledoy, 1970. 3. Jame, S.:dterfleld, "Information far Tencher., PhysldClns Clnd CounselofS." 4, Mark Clnd Ervin, op, (it., p. 160. 5. Ibid, p. 1 1 2 . 6 . J. S. Werry a n d H. C. Quoy, '·The prevolenc" of b"hovlor symptoms in young". school elementary child."n." American Jour"," of Orthopsychiatry 41:136, 1971. "Post­ 7. Lauretto Bender, Encephalitic Behavior Disord"n In Childhood,'· in Encephalitis: A Clinical Study, ed. J, Neal, Grune & StraHan, 1972. 8. Paul H, Wender, Minimal Brain Oyt/unctlon In Children. New YQ.k. John Wiley & Sons, 1971. p. 61. 9. Oonlel Soler, Richard Allen, Evelyn Barr, "Depression of GrQwth in HyperacHve Children on Stimulant Drugs," New England Journal of Medielne 287:217. 1972. 10. A. Lutas and M. Weiss, "Methylphenidate Hallucinosis;· Journal of the American Medical AUDelot/on 217:1019, 1971. in advertisement 11. CIBA Psvch/alrlc News, Seple-mber 20, 1912, p.9. REMOVE THE OF SCHIZOPH SYMPTOMS 'STElAZINE' PROVIDES EfFECTIVE ({ HALLUCINATIONS, DElUSIONS. AN; SCHIZOPHRENIC SYMPTOMS IN A VI fROM THE WITHDRAWN AND APAH AND OVERACTiVE. 'STElAZINf' HEll PSYCHOTIC PATIENT TO REALITY At-. THERAPEUTIC CONTACT ANO RAPP( • • • EFFECTIVELY CONTROlS PSYCHOT SELDOM CAUSES EXCESSIVE SEDAl CONVENIENT B.LD. DOSAGE ..,�.,.�,,-�.,-.��� �-""�-...�..., ....�.� .. """"""_.,....rl•••_. "_,STEU TRIFWOPEI Helps schiwphren1( polien 'perverts', or no matter what other psycho-diagnostic category. What do exist are psychiatrists, psycholo_ gists and al! manner of other psycho-technicians. The latter exist only precariously; when no roles remain for them to live, their very securizing identity is at stake-on the stake waiting to be roasted. Psychiatrists and their associated tribe have canni_ balized us too long in the perverse mode of fattening us up for the slaughter with masses of neuroleptics, injections, shocks, interpretations in their masters' voice, and with their projections �of their fear of their madness, their envy of the other's madness and their halred of the reality of human difference, of autonomy. Now, though fed up, we will de-vow them! Even though they arc small fry they fry quicker than quick since they wash whiter than white. There are two things to be done: firstly, the final extinguishing of capitalism and the entire mystifying ethos of private property; secondly, the social revo­ lution against every form of repression, every violation of autonomy, every form of surveillance and every social mind·manipulation�the technique of revolution that must happen before, during and forever after the political revolution that will produce the classless SOciNY . If these things do not happen well within the limits of this century, within the life-span of most of us now Jiving, our species wi!! be doomed to rapid extinction. In such a case, if our species is not extinguished, it should be, because it will no longer be the human species. It is not true as the philosophers of pessimism say that 'the dreadful has already happened' (Heidegger), but is is true that we are haunted by the dreadful and it is true that there is no hope. There is only incessant, unrelenting struggle and that is the permanent creation of the hoped for . . . a forgotten intentionality. After the desfruction of 'psychosis' and the depassment of the structures that invented it for their system, we can now consider the abolition of madness, and the word 'madness'. But first let us consider this state of affairs: The madman in the psychiatric situation is faced, in short, by a three-fold impossibility: 1 . If he lies, enters into a collusive situation of pretense with the psychiatrist, he betrays his own experience, murders his own reality, and it is not likely to work anyhow in a situation where the other (respectable one) is defined by his role as being always 'onc up' with regard to reality. 1,.. 1/ he tells the truth he will be destroyed by all the techniques available, because who can dare exprcsS things that exceed the wretched limits of normal language imposed by the ruling class and all its psycho· agents. He must be protected from such a suicidal defiance; he is logically saved from such a suicide by the simple act of murder. 3. If he stays silent he will be forced to chatter acceptable nonsense (withdrawal would be seen as katatonic or paranoid, as if there were something to feel suspicious about in the psychiatric, or any of an the other repressive situations surrounding the psychiatric one). Schizophrenia has no existence but that of an ex­ ploitable fiction. Madness exists as the delusion that consists in really uttering an unsayable truth in an unspeakable situation. Madness, presently, is universal subversion desper­ ately chased by extending systems of control and surveillance. It wi!! find its issue with the victory of all forms of subversive struggle against capitalism, fascism and imperialism and against the massive, undigested lumps of repression that exist in bureau­ cratic socialism, awaiting the social revolution that got left behind in the urgency of political revolution, understandably perhaps, though never excusably. The future of madness is its end, its transformation into a universal creativity which is the lost place where it came from in the first place. I . Even such remorseless critics of psychiatry, from the interior of the establishment, as Dr. Thomas SZas?: equate freedom with the U.S. Constitution and bour­ geOis law. What freedom is it that depends on the enslavement of the rest of the world, particularly the Third World on which capitalism (parasitkeven in its origins, the genocide of original people and the destruction of their civilizations and black slavery) depends-and could not survive without. The im­ plantation, the direct and indirect support of fascist military dictatorships by the imperialist countries, neo­ colonialism and multinational company criminality exist , even though schizophrenia doesn't Dr. Szasz (who has accused all psychiatrists of crimes against humanity while one menta! patient remains com­ pulsorily detained against his will) is far more consistent and honest than most ('Psychiatry is a religion . . I teach the religion'). In general however, the teaching of pSYCho-technologies introduces a police operation into the universities and is in contra­ diction with the celebrated Academic Freedom. 2. Wolfgang Huber (a p8ychiatrisO and his wife, of the Socialist Patients' Collective (S.P.K.), Heidelberg, were imprisoned for four years for being, very ob­ viously, taken as literal. They wanted to establish an autogestion in the university psychiatric centre. The police, directed by the psychiatric establishment, 'found' guns in their possession. The S.P.K., now resuscitated, had the aim of uStllR 'illness' as an arm against the capitalist system, a method of political edu­ cation, not therapy. )NTROL OF (IEly AN[)OTHER IIDE RANGE OF PATI�Nrs lETICTO THE ANXIOUS "SRETURN THE 10 CAN FACILITATE )RT. IC SYMPTOMS ION UINE�;� tAZlNE HCL 1 5 twcome more responsive Martine Barrat Vicki Martine Barral: Have you been writing again the way you used (0 when you were in jail? Vicki: Yeah. I write when I think of what's like today. You know. sometimes when you're alone you just lay back and look up at the ceiling and just think about good things . . . A s a matter o f fact, I was thinking of the gangs. Thinking of the time that we rumbled against the Immortal Girls and, at that time, it didn't seem funny because I had a one-on-one. 1 fought the Prez of that division. Her name was Nancy. Martine: Was she big? Vicki: No, she was tall. And now that think of it I laugh because I should have felt stupid at the time. The girl was one of those girls that just has a lot of mouth. So her girls came in our club. The second division club . . . of the Royal Queens . . . and messed it up. Threw the furniture down and everything. And one of our girls went into the club at the time they Martine Barrat has been making videotapes in the South Bronx in collaboration with street gangs since 1971. They were present­ ed at the Schizo-Culture Colloquium and, recently, at the Whitney Museum. Vicki, who was 16 when this conversation was taped a year ago, has two children. She is the "Prez" (president) of the Roman Queens, the female counterpart of the Roman Kings. were doing it. They beat her up. One of my girls. So, I was in the moyies with half of my girls. We usually sit right in the middle. I had my girls there and we were smoking. We was all fucked up at that time. We was drinking a lot of beer and wine and was just goofing on the picture. It was Foxy Brown. All of a sudden this girl comes in and she's bleeding. She tells me, "Hey, man, the Immortal Girls just beat us up." You know how fast I jumped up'! And I was high. We all ran down there. They fucked her up, you know. There was about six of them and only one of her. It really wasn't fair. So we went down there. Martine: You went to their club? Vicki: Yeah. The Immortal Girls comes out. We was in the school yard. We was all packing. The Prez, all she says is, "Why the fuck you want some static? You don't like what we did?" And I said, "No. I don't like what you did and I could blow you away right now." So she said, "Yeah, that's al! you need. That's all you use is a gun." I said, "Look, I use my hands, too." I'm very good with my hands. My brothers, they teach me to fight, you know. " Martine: Do you find it difficult 10 use guns? Because you're a girl? Do you feel you need a lot of strength to lise them? Vicki: Not really because since my broth­ ers were Nomads, which was before they were Roman Kings, they had guns. So the first-gun that they had lent to me was a ,22. Ii ;,vaS small, and my brother, I think it was Ace, told me, "You never shot a gun, right?", and I told him "no," So he told me, "Come with m e up to the roof." He shot and says, "Now is your turn. " 1 didn't know what the hell to do, so I said. "What do I do with this?" "Just do straight," he says, and I shot it. The first time you feel kind of nervous after you shoot a gun because it kicks a lot. From that day on, every time I'd get a gun I'd start shooting on the roof. And that's how I learned, But a big gun isn't easy for me to handle. flow old were you then? I was small. I was about eleven. But from that day on I have a .32 automatic on me. I always carry it around, especially when I get my check. or when I'm ,,,filing home alone at night. You know, ::o;o'!body j� going to jump me and stuff. s'! 1 just pull it out. I won't shoot to kill, but 1 'il shoot them sO they know not to fuck around with me no more. That's how I am. But that time, with that girl, I didn't want to take up the gun because I feel, boy, I'll just slap her around a few times and the girl will shut her damned mouth. I don't like to talk when I argue with somebody, ' I'll �wing first. I lost my temper fast. eve�l with a guy (laughs), That's why most ormy boyfriends, they left me. It's not that I'm a manhandler but it's the type of thing where I don't like nobody to slap me arOllnd. My mother don't hit mc. My own mother. she hit me only twice and that was when J wf.i� small. Mar-tine: Vicki: r(lll think guys {eave YOII for thaI. They lan't take it? Vicki: They can't takc it because they ar" gued with m'e, I get mad fast. Espe;.;iaily when they cuss at you, say "Ah, fvet; Y(lu" or something like that. And 1 SJy, "What?" They don't have to swin� al lIle first because I'll turn around and ,'n �'wing at them and we just fight right there. I'm not as strong as a man and really rhr,:y kiCK my ass, you might as well say But \'\e pro....ed to them that when you raise a hand on me, I'm going to laise one back. Because he would lose respect for me just Martine: as much as I am losing respect for him. We just fall sliding all over the place until one of us give up . . . and most likely he's going to give up because I lost my temper and if I grab their hair, whatever 1 got, I won't let go. You are lucky to have brother� teaching you how to fight, Vicki: Yeah. Uke when we was the Young Nomads, they used to put me up to fight with the girls. , Martine: For initiation ? Vicki: Yeah. If I would lose a fight, they'll make me fight her and fight her until I win. I could be dead on my feet and, boy, they teU me to go ahead and fight, fight until I'm going to get real mad and I'm going to whip her ass. That's how they taught me. Don't ue scared of nobody. Especially i f they raise their hand t o you. So, that's what happened. Martine: And that's why you want to ('ach your little girl to fight? Vicki: Right. Now she gets real mad. She starts swinging at anybody that's there, whoever bothers her. I teach her. I tell her, "You hit back because they only going to fuck over you if you don't hit back." She's like that and I'm like that. But I don't tel! her to go around hitting everybody in the head. I just tell her, "When someb�){jy hi1S you, you hit back. And if they anl11e wi1t! ),ou, you argue with them. If they talk back to you, you talk back to them. Just don'1 let nobody lalk about your mofher or Y0tH fatht:r or your family." One thing I rJon't want .1Oybou.,! calling me is a Olother� fucker. b<!came I feel I don't hIck my mother, 1 got a lot of respect for my >nom-to a point where if somebc\dy puts h�r down that's it. Right there l s{.:c blood in my eyes and I just go at th('nI. I say, "Look, J'm not a mother-fucker. Don't ever say that." Either they say, ' ' Ah, you know, it's only a joke, we're only goofing ar,)und". But it's my hear·t . Tpat's my mother, you know. and I love her. I'm not �olng to let somebody else talk ar.out her, e�pecially no! in my lamily. Ev;::n my own brothers. I say, "Don't talk about Ma like Iha!, because we all got the same mother and (he same blood and we love her a Jolo" And they understand what I'm saying. Martine: I {ave your mother, She's very sweet and she worked Martine: Vicki: hard to get where she's at. She tries her she could go to hell, too. I tell her, "I was best. born in this world by myself. I ' m going to Martine: When there are rumbles between cliques, are they between cliques ofgirls or do they involve the guys? Vicki: It was mostly with guys because there wasn't a lot of trouble with girls. Really and truly. Martine: You think girls fight as much as guys? Vicki: how ! am. I hold it in, hold it in. They fuck me today. I get my ass kicked today. But I alway� get revenge. Marlin{': Like your rumhle with the Immortals? Vicki: Yeah, like that girL ! grab her alone and we straightened it out and now me an' Well, guys fight a lot. Girls' don't fight as much. Like i f it was al! up to them we'l! fight. The guys, they got to fight be­ cause their prez tells them to fight. But if it was up {Q us girls, we'd hand out together. We would like to have a brotherhood. But sometimes it's the girls. I'm the one who started tell you personally (hat you got me now. but !'m going to pay you bacL" That's rumbling with the Immortals because I have something against that girl from school, Nancy. We fought and then she told the school J pu!led out a knife on her and they threw me out. I couldn't go to school no more, so I had something against the Immortals because of her. When I have something against some­ body, I take it out in one fight. Onc fight. As long as I get m y shit off. After that if she want to talk t o me, she talk to me but 1 1( .'1' don't have no trouble. I see her. She's in jail righf now when I go to see her. Marline: Why 1:5 she in jail? Vicki: She was selling drugs. She sold drug_, 10 a cop and now she's facing ten to Iwenty·five. Martine: l1/erc there many fights with knivcs and gllns at rhe time you were in schnol? \'j(ki: No guns or knives, we j ust fight with the hands. l\·lmt o f the time that the-re's fights is because someone don't !ike you or someone try to take my boyfriend away. So, they fight and scratch each other ur· M:lrlinc: Rut YOII've fought with knives {[nd slu/I Was thar outside a/ school? Yeah, outside. Say I fight some­ should get all the cliques and the girts to­ body and I beat her up. She ain't going to gether. You know, make truce and then like that. So she know if she fights with me throw parties and shit. But it could never again, I'm going to beat her up again. So happen that way. Because of the guys. she'll bring something to stab me with, or Put it this way, a woman has a softer she'll bring a gun and shoot me with it. We heart than a man. A man, if he holds some­ don't trust them just like they don't trust thing against somebody, he's going to get "' . them. Kill them. And they're determined to do even that. That's what's wrong with the Martine: So you think that's one oj the reasons why kids in the clique carry guns? gang. Like if somebody from another dique do something to a Roman King, Vicki: Yeah, that's why. God knows what they'll hold it in for a while and then, when they going to do when we turn our backs, they catch that person, forget it. You might just like God knows what we going to do as well say they finished. They dead. If it when they turn their backs. That's all. was up to the girls we'd be friends with Martine: Do you remember when Charlie everybody. But the guys, shit, they'll kick organized that /Jig meeting with all the you with their M.e. boots. cliques afler Benji got killed? To fry to gel them together so they wouldn 't fight Martine: You were telling me aboul the an)'more? Outlaw Marriage in the cliques. You 'old Vicki: I was upstate at the time. I heard me that the girl who gets married in certain about it. By the time I got back everything cliques has fa get down with all the guys in passed and everybody wac; walking the the clique. Do the girlsfeel like that is being streets again. AI! the diques. raped? Vicki: I feel that they do, yeah. It's just Martine: You're a leader of a clique, 100. Did you ever think about getting all the like rape. When a girl has to get down with all of them. I WOUldn't do that. 1 couldn't cliques together? walk in the street proud. I think a good Vicki: Yeah. I tried to do that a lot. I would talk to my girls and tell them we man is the type that will make love to a Vicki: woman and won't talk about it to nobody. It's his personal thing. The thing he should keep inside. A man that lays with a woman and then tells every guy, "Oh, I lay with that girl, she's a good ruck," he's bad. That make you feel like a piece of shit on the floor. If I'm going to marry a dude from a clique, I'm going to give myself only to him. You might as well be alone or become a tramp or something if you lay with every guy. Martine: But the guy doesn 't have to get down with all/he girls? Vicki: (laughs): No. But if he lets his wife that he just married get down with the other guys, then the marriage is over. Really. Has to be. Martine: You think that wilt change one day? Vicki: Yeah. I t will change. Like now most of the cliques ain't that way. I got married Outlaw. We don't do that in the Roman Kings. Martine: Can you describe the marriage to me because I've never been to one? Vicki: The Roman Queens are on one side and the Kings on their side and everybody flies their colors. We're clean. We're never dirty. You know, we have our dungarees, our tee shirt, our jackets with the colors on it and our boots, The guys have on their Outlaw pants, a tee shirt, all their colors. Their hats, whatever. And their M.C:s. And the girls are on one side and all the guys on the other side and we get in the middle. Me and him. Well, when 1 got mar­ ried to Baba, his twin brother got married too. Behind them was the bridesmaid and the . . . what you call . " best man. The guy that married us was Husky Pekkhing'. So we walked up to him. We stand there be­ L'ause it was like a double wedding, And Husky was there telling us, "I now pro­ nounce you man and wife," like all the things they say in church. Martine: Did he hold a book like a priest or something? Vicki: Oh yeah. It was a bible. He was holding it in his hands. We even had rings, You know, I ' m not saying expensive wedding rings but they was real sterling. Anyway he say "kiss your bride and put the ring on the finger," and it was just like a rea! church. Except that afterwards, in- stead Of tnrowmg I I\..<;; '"''- '''�J _� church, they're pouring beer all over liS. White we're walking down the aisle. Three q!-!arts. Martine: Did you sing? Vicki: No. But the Roman Kings they buy beer and they get us real high and then we're allowed to stay in the club, The club was our apartment for three days. It's in this wrecked building, I t was our honey� moon, We stayed there for three days , . , without coming out (laughs). I f the Roman Kings would have seen us out before three days they would have sent us back in. Yeah. Did you cook? Yeah. Martine: Vicki: And love? Yeah. (laughs). Martine: Vicki: And care for each other? Yep. And from that day on-this happened four months ago-we're still IOgelher. Mllrtine: Vicki: And where was your little girl? My mother wa� with her, I told my mother about it. She didn't say nothing. Martine: Vicki: Did your mother come to your wedding? Vicki: Are you crazy? Martine: There were no parents? No, just us. But I feel it was nice, vou know, because I've been raised by the �angs. Martine: Vicki: Martine: But in other cliques, like when Cheena gal married with Black Ben in the Sa\age Nomads, Ihe ceremony was differ­ ent because she had to get down with . . . Vicki: She do the same thing that they do in church except that then they cut themselves. CUI themselves. Where? Not on the vein. On the wrist. A little bit just to show their blood and then they rub it. With two hands, Like this. Martine: Vicki: Like Indians were doing? Yeah, Right. And then they got down in front of everybody and then she had to get down with the clique. And that was it. But that's how 1 feel about the rape thing. I fell that I married Baba right. The other guys respect me. And they tel! me, " l would like to rap to you i f you wasn't this Martine: Vicki: 80 guy's." And he feels proud because, you know, I ' m no! conceited, but I know I ' m n o t ugly. Martine: When Cheena gO! married with Rlack Ben, how many years ago was thaI? Vicki: Four. five years ago. Ihi, way, half o f (he building are butches and faggots. I guess Ihat's what's happen_ ing noW. Just a new style I guess. Like me. I done gay when I was locked tip. Martine: When you were in jail? Vicki: I had turned gay because I didn't Do you thinkshe was upset being raped by Ihe division. Was it all the mem­ bers oj the gang. or was it a division only? \\"a� landy. Vicki: There was a l ot of guys but I think it was a division only. Martine: Martine! Martine: division? About how many people are in a 10. I guess I had a ,houlder to Jean o n. It was a thing where I have no man to !tim A Jo! of girls are like that when they gel locked up . And rhe same for the guys? Ykki: The same for a guy, too. They know all they going to see is boys so they say, Vicki: Thirteen. I t ' s a good luck number. ·'What the heck. You going to be here for a That's al! there was. She felt bad, but she got over it. while, why not enjo)' il?" So, girls turn to a girl and the guys turn 10 a guy. That's Why J think Ihat sex is bisexual. Marline: Did she talk about it fa you? Vicki: No. She was on her honeymoon at that time and when she came back she wouldn't hardly come around. She used to slay with Ben most o f the time so we didn't Marline: And when you were in jail most (!l fhe girls were going �t'i(h girls? Vicki: Yeah. Most of them. Some girls don't like gay but if they know they're go­ have a good chance o f talking. Ing 10 do a long time they get curious, Bul I'm sure she didn 't go for that at all. Sume o f rhem Ihey just stay straight. They Martine: Vicki: No, nobody go for that. Only the girls who like i t and they must be stupid or crazy or something, Nobody likes to be raped. I wouldn't, I feel I would go through a lot of changes if I did get raped. Are there many girls who are getting raped around here by cliques? Martine: won'l (urn cookie for nothing. Martine: YOII were retlillg me ahOIlf your siSler a'1I0 got raped in your building, What happel/cd? Vicki: Well, she was going to school and ,ill' forgol her wallet. She came back up and this guy was in the elevator with her. They're friends so they was talking (0 each olher, When they got 10 his floor he pushed Vicki: Well. before yes. B u t now, no. I think the guys got sense now. You know, they rap for i t instead. her out and then he raped her right there. She stayed in her room after thaI. She didn't want to talk to nobody, She didn't Martine: Some people say that more and more young people ofyour generation are bisexual or homosexual. Is that true? want to tell nobody until long after. My sister, she always remember that. Right now she's living with her husband and Vicki: Yeah. i t' s true. Some girls turn gay because they got raped by their father. Somt" girls turn gay because a lot of guys raped 'them or a lot of guys used them and hurt them. Or some fell i n love and every­ time the guy hurts her. Leaves ht"r. That's why they could go"to a girl . . . because they know the girl won't leave. I think girls, butches and friends, can stay together longer than a man and a woman, a man and wife. J guess i t' s because they under­ stand each other. When they have a prob­ lem they could both t a l k it up, you know, because they're both womans. The men, too, 1 guess t h e men has the same problems. Like i n the project. Pul it when she has se.>; ual, you know, intercourse \Hth him she thinks of that and that fucks her up. Blli at least she told him. She told h i m what happened 10 her and he don't blame her. He knows what she went llHough, Now they're all right. The rest of tile rapes ain't around here. They're a few blocks down . . . on Fox Street. There are buildings there? Marline: (l lot of abandoned Vkki; tvlos1 of Fox Street is abandoned. The buildings are standing up by surprise. The gangs go Ihere and forget i t . First Ihey use the basement and from the basem ent (hey mO\'e up and up and lip. Then they hilve Ille whc!e building. In a few months 81 to me moved away because of the neigh­ borhood. But you got to Itve through it be­ Marline: Like affer a war. Your mother cause everywhere you go people are going and people who five in places like that call to move away. There's going to be trouble {hose places "Korea. " Do you think it's no matter where you are. geUing worse? Martine: Do you think of moving out Vicki: Oh, it's getting worser and worser. when you get older? I've been living here for about eleven years. Vicki: Sometime. But in a way I can't Since I was sma!!. I seen buildings that just move because I love this place no matter get put up and then I seen them get how ftlcked up it looks. I was born here knocked down. I seen this place we live in and raised here and I guess I'm going to when it was pretty. Yeah, pretty. Locks on stay here. the door in the front of the building and I guess if I'm going to become some­ everyt hing. But now it's all knocked down. thing or if I'm going to gel fucked up I There was a movie house up here. Right up don'! have to go out of state to do it. This the block but it burned down. It ain't a is the South Bronx and you take it the way moyie no more. People that are very close it is. the whole building is condemned. John Giomo G�piPg at EmptiJless You are walking down Lafart �treet #� and your face twists up and starts crying turn your face to the wall so nobody'll see there's tears. running down your cheeks don't hold on cause I ' m already gone ¥ou are walking down lafayette Street You are walking down Lafayette Street and your face twists up and your face twists up and starts crying and starts crying and starts crying, you are walking down Lafayette Street and your face twists up and starts crying turn your face to the wall turn your face to the wall so nobody'tI see so nobody'II see, there's tears running down your cheeks there's tears running down your cheeks, don't hoJd on don't hold on, cause I ' m already gone cause I ' m already gone; and there ain't nothing worse in a relationship than stupidity you're so fucking up tight blind ignorance and no matter how much I love fucking you no matter how much I love making love to you, I can't stand being here another moment as a matter of fact I never want to see you again and as I said to you over the telephone "I hope you have a nice weekend" you're running on empty and I feel and there ain't nothing worse in a relationship and there ain't nothing worse ' in a relationship than stupidity than stupidity than stupidity than stupidity, you're so fucking up tight you're so fucking up tight you're so fucking up tight, blind ignorance blind ignorance blind ignorance, and no matter how much I love fucking you and no matter how much I love fucking no matter how much I love making love to you, I can't stand being here another moment I can't stand being here another moment as a matter of fact I never want to see you again I never want to see you again I never want to .see you again, and as I said to you over the telephone and as 1 said to you over the telephone "I hope you have a nice weekend" I hope you have a nice weekend," you're running on empty you're running on empty you're running on empty, and I feel 84 old and ugly and I don't want to talk to anybody nothing I've ever loved no matter how much the potential was ever worth the suffering you're on United Flight Number 222 I think we're over Kansas because the earth is covered with squares and rectangles because the earth is covered with squares and rectangles, flying back to New York flying back to New York, covered with squares and rectangles, sipping a whiskey sipping a whiskey, flying back to New York, no matter how old and ugly and I feel old and ugly and I feel old and ugly, and I don't want to talk to anybody and I don't want to talk to anybody and I don't want to talk to anybody, nothing I've ever loved nothing I've ever loved no matter how much the potential nothing I ever loved no matter how much the potential was ever worth the suffering was ever worth the suffering was ever worth the suffering, you're on United Flight Number 222 you're on United Flight Number 222, I think we're over Kansas [ think we're over Kansas because the earth is covered with squares and rectangles flying back to New York sipping a 'whiskey no matter how famous I become no matter how famous I become, no matter how much money I make no matter how much money I make, no matter how beautiful I used to be no matter how beautiful I used to be, I'm always totally lonely I'm always totally lonely I'm always totally lonely I'm always totally lonely, and if I wasn't a fucking Buddhist I'd love to put a gun in my mouth and blow my fucking head off in slow motion, and the pilot says we're flying at 37,000 feet over Kansas wide open blue evening sky, grasping famous I become no matter how much money I make no matter how beautiful I used to be I'm always totally lonely and if I wasn't a fucking Buddhist and if I wasn't a fucking Buddhist, I'd love to put a gun in my mouth I'd love to put a gun in my mouth I'd love to put a gun in my mouth and blow my fucking head off and blow my fucking head off and blow my fucking head off in slow motion, and the pilot says we're flying at 37,000 feet over Kansas we're flying at 37,000 feet over Kansas. wide open wide open blue wide open blue evening sky. grasping at emptiness I keep repeating this to myself I remember saying it to you, you get no cover from your backdoor lover you're standing at a subway urinal pulling on your meat cause I want to make love to somebody on my way back downtown somebody is SUCking your cock somebody is sucking your cock somebody is sucking your cock, and someone else comes up next to you and someone else comes up next to you, at emptiness grasping at emptiness grasping at emptiness, I keep repeating • this to myself I keep repeating this to myself 1 keep repeating this to myself, I said it to you I said it to you, I remember saying it to you, you get you get you get you get no Cover from your backdoor lover you get no cover from your backdoor lover, you're standing at a subway urinal you're standing at a subway urinal, pulling on your meat pulling on your meat pulling on your meat, cause I want to make love to somebody on my way back downtown cause I want to make love to somebody on my way back downtown cause 1 want to make love to somebody on my way back downtown, you're standing at a subway urinal, somebody is sucking your cock and someone else comes up next to you and you're kissing him and you're kissing him and you're kissing him, the Howard Johnson toilet on the Garden State Parkway, the Long Island men's room in Freeport, I saw it in a Walt Disney cartoon once . saw it in a WaIt Disney cartoon once, here you're gone today here you're gone today here you're gone today and all I ever wanted to do was to love you and all 1 ever wanted to do was to love you here you're gone today and aU I ever wanted to do was to love you, grasping at emptiness grasping at emptiness grasping at emptiness, I've made so many mistakes in my life I've made so many mistakes in my life I"ve made so many mistakes in my life I only got 3 dollars in my pocket I only got 3 dollars in my pocket, I'm sitting in a car on an expressway in a traffic jam I'm sitting in a car on a expressway in a traffic jam, and you're kissing him the Howard Johnson toilet on the Garden State Parkway, the Long Island men's room in Freeport, I saw it in a Wait Disney cartoon once here you're gone today and all I ever wanted to do was to love you grasping at emptiness I've made so many mistakes in my life I only got 3 dollars in my pocket, I'm sitting in a car on an expressway in a traffic jam, 88 I like dirty ,ex I like dirty sex I like dirty sex, I like it when you cum when I'm pissing in your mouth I like it when you cum when I'm pissing in your mouth, and hot concrete road and hot concrete road and highway and highway and overpasses popping and overpasses popping, you haven't got anything to lose, cause nothing you've ever done has been any good big ego and hustle it's all over now, baby, and I don't know where I like dirty sex I like it when you cum when I'm pissing in your mouth, and hot concrete road and highway and overpasses popping, you haven't got anything to lose, cause nothing you've ever done has been any good cause nothing you've ever done has been any good cause nothing you've ever done has been any good, big ego big ego big ego, and hustle and hustle and hustle, and it's all over now, baby it's all over now, baby, you haven't got anything to lose you haven't got anything to lose, and I don't know where the money comes from and I don't know where 89 the money comes from it's all going to end tomorrow three times today I dialed your number three times today I dialed your number three times today I diaJed your number, you weren't there you weren't there you weren't there, I keep thinking about you I keep thinking about you I keep thinking about you, and I know you're a reflection of my mind and I know you're a reflection of my mind and I know you're a reflection of my mind, I'm lying down here on my bed I'm lying down here on my bed, thinking about when I'm going to see you thinking about when I'm going to see you, I'm going to say to you I'm going to say to you I'm going to say to you, don't think too much tonight, baby don't think too much tonight, baby, the money comes from, and I don't know where the money comes from it's all going to end tomorrow it's all going to end tomorrow it's all going to end tomorrow. three times today I dialed your number you weren't there. I keep thinking about you, and I know you're a reflection of my mind, I'm lying down here on my bed, thinking about when I'm going to see you, I'm going to say to you, don't think too much tonight, baby, spend the night spend the night with me, stay until the break of day, share this night with me in my arms, I keep looking for the feeling I lost when I lost you, and it was bullshit, and now, baby, it's chickenshit, we're sitting on the green couch, I'm hugging you, we're kissing, wish I knew how to make love to you, with me spend the night with me spend the night with me, stay until the break of day stay until the break of day, share this night with me share this night with me in my arms in my arms in my arms, I keep looking for the feeling I lost when I lost you I keep looking for the feeling I lost when 1 lost you I keep looking for the feeling I lost when I lost you, and it was bullshit and it was buUshit and it was bullshit, and now, baby, it's chickenshit and now, baby, it's chickenshit, we're sitting on the green couch we're sitting on the green couch, I'm hugging you I'm hugging you I'm hugging you, we're kissing we're kissing, I wish I knew how to make love to you I wish I knew how to make love to you I wish 1 knew how to make love to you, when I was in when I was in Rome Italy. fettuc4l�i alfredo, Marion Javits give me another hit of the popp.e;r, you're not going to find. what yo\\. w\l1.\t in this b"f you, kn9w you're no� going to find hill,1. anywh.�re you're cruising the b.,..t\1s \o.l?ki,J;\g 'I' ttw dimly - * r09W:$ t�ese guys e9:s�Og, fo�. pOf.nogr-al?hi� , p�9��r�s \ w��\ t� waK� it 'With you I want to make it with you 1 want to make it with you Rome Haly w. hen I WaS in Rome Italy, fettQchini alfredo. Marion JavUs give mQ another \>iI of the popper Marlon J�vits give me another hil qf tht:; popper, YQl\'re not going t.o Hog w1w,t yQQ wl,1,nt in this bar yo�'re \1,0t $oing to find whM you want in this bar -yO\l\f� oot going to find what you want ip, this par, Y9;V. loww yo\\.\r� Qot S,0\1lg, to f�uQ 'hi\ll aQyw\lere you. know you're not going to nnq \lim anywhere you knQw you're not going to find him anywh�re. yp,\l're Qf\lising the bat!'!s You 'r� \;lfuising the baths �O,u're cruising the baths, �o,o.�ing in thJ� dimly li� rooms 10Qking in the dimly lit rooms, tt�esl' guys posing f9f pornographic pi9��res {\WSc guys looking like \hey're posing for pornographic pictures I Wonl t9 make it with YOU 92 I want to make it with you, the guy in a Levi shirt with a hard on the guy in a Levi shirt with a hard on, YOll're walking down 7th Avenue you're walking down 7th Avenue, and all these people arc passing you and all these people are passing you and all these people are passing you, everyone of them has a lover everyone of them has a lover, and how come I'm alone we're in your room and we're kissing and there may be no attachment to the object of grasping and there may be no attachment to the object of grasping, but it's attachment to grasping but it's attachment to grasping, alJ you got to do is look at it, a hologram in my heart, and dissolve it pui! the plug, the guy in a Levi shirt with a hard on you're walking down 7th Avenue and all these people are passing you everyone of them has a lover, and how come I'm alone and how come I'm alone and how come I'm alone, we're in your room and we're kissing we're in your room and we're kissing, we're holding you tight we're holding you tight, and there may be no attachment to the object of grasping but it's attachment to grasping but it's attachment to grasping all you got to do is look at it all you got to do is look at it, a hologram in my heart a hologram in my heart, and dissolve it and dissolve it and dissolve. pull the plug, 93 turn the TV off, is what turns into bliss is what turns into bliss is what turns into bliss, dissolving desire dissolving desire dissolving desire becomes bliss becomes bliss becomes bliss, pure phenomena pure phenomena pure phenomena, not thinking about it not thinking about it nQt thinking about it, taking it ca.sy taking it easy taking it easy, !;onfidence, fearlessness and tranquility confidence, fearlessness anq tranquility, but affer all these long years but after all these IOfJg years, my Jl1editation i�n't so good my meditation isn't so good, the guy on the 2nd floor the guy on the 2nd floor is mostly stoned on grass turn the TV off turn the TV off, is what turns into bliss is what turns into bliss is what turns into bliss. dissolving desire dissolving desire dissolving desirex becomes bliss becomes bliss becomes bliss. pure phenomena pure phenomena pure phenomena. not thinking about it not thinking ab9nt it not thinking ilbmlt it, taking it easy taking it easy ta�1!1g it easy, confidence, fearlessness and tranquility �onfjqel1ce, fearlessness and trap.qQility pure empty phenomena, but after r,1I these long years, my meditation isn't so good, 9. is mostly stoned on grass, listening to disco listening to disco listening to disco, aint no way I can live without you aint no way I can live without you aint no way I can live without you, standing right here standing right here, waiting on your return waiting on your return waiting on your return, I just Jove to turn the FM radio to dancing music, get stoned sip some vodkha, is mostly stoned on grass, listening to disco aint no way I can live without you standing right here waiting on your return I just love to turn the FM radio to dancing music I just love to turn the FM radio to dancing music, get stoned get stoned get stoned, sip some vodkha sip some vodkhu, and think and think and think and think and think - The Hard Machine TECHNIQUE The original moehl". for .Iec­ trlc: convulsive therapy (EeT) was bunt by Bini. A large number of modifications has be.n recorn­ me-nded since, but many of the machine' used or. still based "$" ,entlally on Bini's design. It can· slsts primarily of a stop watch for time regulation to fractions of a ,.(and and of devices for meas­ uring and regulating the current. Alt.rnoting current from electric light circuits having (I frequency of 50 to 60 cycles Is us.d. A volt. meter regulotes the voltage to b. oppUed. Th. orlglnol machine had a second low·vallog. currenl circuit for preliminary meo,ure. ment of th. resistance of the potlent's head. An automatic time dock or various time relays from 0.1 to 0.5 second or more Interrupt the current after the desired length of time. Haber de­ vised an apparatus which gen­ erates rectangular alternating current, Independent of any city current. Several workers use machines which permit the set. ting of the actual mill1amperage to be allowed to flow through the patient'. head. The reliability of this development Is a matter of controversy, however. All the vorlous machines on sole Serve their purpose to produce convul­ sions. The simplest models seem to be the best for they are not complicated by many gadgets which or. clinically unimportant and a frequent cause for break­ downs of the- machine, Alphonso F. lingis Savages Of all that is savage about savages, the most savage is what these people, who construct nothing, who do no! even labor the earth, who write nothing, do to themselves. They paint, perforate, tatoo, incise, circumcise. scari fy, cicatrize themselves. They usc their own flesh as so much material at hand for-what? We hardly know how to characterize it-art? inscription? sign�language? Or isn't all that more like hex signs? Aren't they treating themselves rather like the pieces of dikdik fur, bat's penis. warthog's tooth, hornbill bird's skull they attach to themselves? At any rate, i t excites some dark dregs of lechery and cruelty in us, holding our eyes transfixed with repugnance and lust. Otherwise, a naked savage would be no more interesting than the baboons, sticking out their bare asses and genitalia as they scramble along, or the orangutangs, with their thin hair that doesn't soften or adorn and thus really doesn't cover over their gross bodyness. The Mayas inserted the soft skull of a baby into a wooden mold at birth, which llattened back the fore­ head, and pushed the brain cavity out at the sides. They hung a stone in front of the baby's brow, so that it would become somewhat cross-eyed, a characteristic they found attractive. They perforated the earlobes, nostrils, lower lip, to insert wires, teeth of animals, beads, chain.�, rings. They filed the teeth, and inserted inlays of stone or obsidian into them. They clitorl­ dectomized the girls and circumcised the boys, tatooed the penis and inserted pieces of bone and colored stones and 'rings into the flesh of the glans. They scarified the plane surfaces of the body, abdomen, breasts, buttocks, such that welts and raised warts covered the body, in rows and patterns. They left their fingernails and toenails grow into foot-long twisting useless claws. They pierced the nipples, and inserted 97 rings in them. In most of Africa circumcision and clit­ oridectomy-this inordinate involvement of the public in your private parts, this cutting into the zone of the most sensitive pleasure nerves and glands -is in fact the main ceremony; most of the songs, dances and instrumental playing the tourist who demands and pays for the maintenance of indigenous cultural forms in the neocapitalist African nations of today hears and sees are in fact songs about circumcision and clitoridectomy, dances these bizarre operations excite in the encampments in the bush. As in the dreamy equatorial paradise of Bali, the principle festivity, the high-point of Balinese social existence, is the sump­ tuous and hilarious cremations. What we are dealing with is-to try to get scien­ tific-inscription, graphics. In a prehistorical people. Where writing, where inscription, was not 'inscription on clay tablets, bark or papyrus, but in flesh and blood, and also where it was not yet historical, nar­ rative. We could say it was not yet significant, not yet a matter of signs, marks whose role is to signify, to efface themselves before the meaning, or ideality, or logos. For here the signs count: they hUrl. Before they make sense to the reader, they give pain to the living sUbstrate. Who can doubt, after Nietzsche, after Kafka (On the Genealogy of Morals. II, The Penal Colony) that before they informed the understanding of the public their pain gave pleasure to its eyes? Moravia -distinguishes between what he calls the psychological face, that of the African living in cities, already civilized, arid the sculptured face of the African who lives in the bush. Italian bodies are ex­ pressive; they make, minute by minute, every part the exterior their bodies present into signs. But they do not scarify, cicatrize, c1itoridectomize themselves, like savages. What they do is a work done on the surface layer by which it is made to connect up, not with the glandular secretions, digestive processes, flows of blood, fermenting gases, bile in the inner functional body, but rather with the intentions in the psychic depth. The surface figures, articulations, moves are made into a zone of systematic mediation between in­ ward, depth, intentions and transcendent objects, , Severol types of electrodes are In use. Metal strips or a mesh· work mounted on a rubber .ponge were originally recom­ mended because they pormlt the greotest adaptability to the ,hope of the patient's head, but simple metal discs may also be used. We .tlll very definitely prefer Bini" forceps electrode In which the electrodes are mount­ ed by movable articulations on a bearer sy.tem whose two arm. act like the two blades of a large forceps. This type of electrode permits strong local pressure on the head and can be much more easily applied than electrodes fixed with rubber bands which Slip off eoslly when the patient move. his head. HANDliNG OF THE PATIENT The patient's position was dic· toted by the endeavor to prevent 'ractures, but the suggestions os to how to accomplish this are di­ verse. Many workers assumed that hyperextension Is a suitable way to prevent vertebral frac­ tures. Hyperextension of the spine was achieved by sandbags placed under the curvature of the mlddonol spine, by especially constructed treatment tablos, or by a surgical Gotch bed (Impos­ toto and Almonsl) In which the patient's bock rests on the ele· voted port of the bed. We alway, considered It preferable to have the patient In a most relo)[ed and unrestrained position with mod­ erafe lIe)[lon of the spine. The shoulders are lightly held byone nurse in order to prevent ex­ treme movements of the arms. The legs are not held ot all since we saw two cases of severe frac­ tures of acetabulum and femur obviously resulting from a too strong "protection" of the legs. A mouth gag is necessary In ardor to prevent tongue bite. Un­ like metro:z:ol convulsions, not all patienls open their mouths of the beginning of an electrically In­ duced sel:r;ure, and It Is safer to Insert the gog before the treof­ ment; the lips should be protect­ ed from getting between mouth gag clnd teeth. The mouth gag should be neither tao hard nor too soft. We prefer a looplike mouth gag made of two rubber tubes, one within the other, covered with gau:z:e. This pre­ vents biting on the more precious 98 Incisors. Protection of the teeth Is an Important problem which has found too little ott_ntlon. In potients with loose teeth, ond pcuticulculV those with only a few Isoloted t_th I.ft, the powerful bite would toncenltetfe on these few t••th. The use of musel. re­ laxant, doe. not lustlfy abolition of mouth gags because there Is often suHldent 5trength left In the low musdes to endanger the teeth. Special mouth gags hove be.n devised permitting oxygen supply through on opening In the mouth gag (Hard). After the unpremedlcoted con­ vulsion, thllt therapist's attention should first b. directed to the patient's respiration. A few artl· flclal respiratory movements should be given immediately as 0 saf.,y measure. If the potlenl 15 very cyclnotlc, oxygen (:on b. given, but this Is not Indispen­ sable. After regulor respiration is secured, the potient must be watched so that he does not fall aut of bed. Strops or sheets to tie him to his bed should be avail· able In case the patient becomes assaultive In the postconvulslve state. This may increase his panic, but It Is unavoidable when help is limited. No patient should get up until he Is quiet and able to answer simple questions satls­ factarUy. Even when this Is the case, the patient may stili misin­ terpret the situation and be<:ame dangerous. POST·CONVULSIVE EXCITEMENT Some patients, particularly males, become dangerously as­ .aultive, develop enormous strength, try to e.cape, run around and Inlure themselves, and may .trlke anyone who at· temph to control them. This reaction Is nat specific for EeT; we have seen It every time in a patient having twenty consecu. tlve convulsions produced partly by metraxol , partly by electric current. In some patients, excite­ ment occurs only following the first treatments, It seems to be mare frequent in patients who have a strong fear of the treat­ ment. Individuals who show this response often have had similar experiences after general anes­ thesia during surgery or when they were Intoxicated. Some workers have attributed diagnos­ tic Importance to the postconvul- goals, landscapes of the world beyond. The surface is not laid out for itself; it is completely occupied by signs which simultaneously refract your gaze off into the street, into the horizon, into history where their signified referents are, and open in upon the psychic depth where the intentions arc being formed. Whence this transparency of the Italian exterior; the cartilage and opaque, rubbery padding of blind flesh with all its lubricating and irrigating pores thins out; you see by looking at him how an Italian fits into the field of operations of the middle and high bourgeoisie, how he relates to a landscape of renaissance palaces, baroque churches, fascist imperial avenues, you see what he is thinking and what he wants. The way she plucks her eyebrows and he cuts his mustache, the signs she paints across her mouth in phosphorescent paint and the angle at which he braces up his cock in its pouch under his nylon swim trunks-all that has nothing to do with the tatooing and body painting and penis sheaths of savages. AI! that is civilized, significant. The�e cicatrizations, these scarifications, these perforations, these incisions on the bodies of savages -they hurt. The eye that looks at them does not read them; it winces, it senses the pain. They are points of high ten�ion; intensities zigzag across them, releasing themselves, dying away orgasmically, into a tingling of 100 slve b.hovlor. Sorgont and Slater felt that the true depressive gen­ erally remains quiet and pleas. ant, while the unrecognh:ed schl%ophrenlc mor show suspi· claus and aggressive behavior. We cannot confirm this and f••1 that postconvulsive excitement b.ort; no relation to the type of psychoses, but that personality 'roits and pr&formed po".rns ploy definlt. roles. The most J." ver. excitement was s.en In (I very good-natured potient who was a wr.stler by profession and who, therefore, was accustomed to fight even In (I holf-consdous state. Treatment of this readion Is by intravenous Inledlon of so­ dium omytal lmmedlot.ly prior to treatment. In ECT under anoslh.­ sig; p_ust-Ireotment excitement 15 only somewhat less frequent. AMNESIA Convulsive treatment is fol­ lowed by amnesia which first In­ cludes a long time-period before the tre(ltment and gradually dim­ Inishes to the events Immediately prior to the treatment_ Stengel demonstrated how the retro­ grade amnesia shrinks only very gradu(llly, while M(lyer-Gross, who studied this symptom ex­ perimentally, sow surprisingly short retrogr(lde (lmnesia, This Is mar. In accord(lnce with our own experience. Som.thlng quit. dif­ fer.nt Is the patient's frequent amnesl(l for the entire psychosis (Bodamer) or for on. single d.lu­ sian (Delay, Delmas-Morsalet). Observation s regarding amnesia for the psychotic content are not uniform, and no conclusion of general v(llidlty can be drawn from them. HOSPITAL It is easy to esl(lbUsh a pleasant atmosphere 'n ECT units If those admInistering the treatment are aware of this problem. Wh(lt we see In many treatment centers contrasts str(lngely with the op­ posite extreme of providing music as an aid to the patient In his experience with shock thera­ py. Price and Knouss describe thre. different types of music which should be played during the three stages of preparing the· patient for the treatmenl , for his return to consciousness and for pleasure. In voluptuous torments, more exactly. and not in contentment, that is, comafose states of equilibrium. In intensive moments when a surface, surplus potential accumulates, intensifies, and dis­ charges. The savage inscription is a working over the skin, all surface effects. This cutting in orifices and raising tumescences does not contrive new receptor organs for the depth body, not multiply ever more subtle signs for the psychic depth where personal in� tent ions would be being formed; it extends the erotogenic surface. Sure, it's a multiplication of mouths, of lips, labia, anuses, these sweating and bleeding perforations and puncturings, it's a proliferation of pricks, these scarifications, these warts raised all over the abdomen, around the eyes, these penis heads set with feathers and haif, these heads with hair tressed into feelers, antennae of beady and lascivious insects. The oral and ana! phase not overcome, renounced, but deviated, the excitations gone to seed, running everywhere, opening up lips and sphincters all across the weaned body, lunatic like the sea, according to Nietzsche, rising up in a million lips to the ful! moon. The phallic dominion decentralized. But what does one gain by all that'! Isn't it civi­ lized, efficient, to invest everything in your cock, and incorporate everything in your vagina? Isn't all the rest so much stupidity, savagery? What is more unnatural than a savage? In fact the libidinal zone is perverse from the start, and is constituted in perversity. Freud finds it beginning as soon as life begins-but by a deviation. He does not see it in the sucking and in the pleasure of sucking, that is, the contentment of filling up and be­ coming a full sack of warm fluid. That is no more libidinally productive than the cactus roots drawing in the rain. He sees it in the slobbering, the drooling, in this surplus potential left on the surface, and from which the coupling derives a surplus pleasure. It is not the holding in, or the expelling of the shit that makes the dirty baby, it's the smearing it around. That is why, in our analysis, we can distinguish two processes, the production of the dosed and sterile body without organs, full and contented, a,nd the production of the libidinal excitations, the surface effects. The white men, the electrical engineers and the geologists on contract, have their own view of the ex­ citations and of the earth. They are Rcicheans by night, believing in total orgasm; they are, Dcrrida says, phallocrats. for them the penis is the drive shaft of the inner machinery of the body; it delivers the power. That's how it works. For whitemen know how things work, not like the jerk-offs in the bush. ThaI'S the productive attitude, or, more exactly, the repro­ ductive. But isn't that what sex is really about, filling that hole with a man? The savages don 't seem convinced. Freud neither. An erection, it's true, that delivers the baby, but the fun is not in that. Libidinally. an erection extends the surface. And, of course, hardens it. concentrates the tension, for the vuluptuous release. Opening up your labia, letting the vaginal fluids run, that of course delivers the egg. But the orgasms extend on the surface. When you get laid you get laid out. The Mobius band coils in on itself. but it's still all surface, inner face or outer face, it's all equivalent. The tensions dance. Ephemeral subjectivities, brief egos, throb and get consumed down there, in the flows. And it is hard. What is comparable to that feeling tight under one's skin? That feeling of filling out, of compacting one's skin? Mishima contrasted vehement­ ly the vague, visceral, dark inwardness of the intel­ lectual, loose and amorphous under his skin, with that feeling (Sun and Steel). That phallic feeling. That Arnold Schwartzenegger feeling-of having a hard on everywhere, ankles, neck, everywhere, being a hard on. coming . . That's the male deIluding, on the beaches of Sylt, under the northern sun. The female is complementary. It's not an erotogenic surface, spreading perverse­ ly its excitations over a closed body without organs beneath. It's body and soul one, nature and culture one, it's surface and depth one. It's the organism. A functional whole, coded from the insid�. And it's male, female. Human. Phallic. That is, the whole body organized, as a lack of the other. Which other? Alterity itself, the transcendent, the be­ yond? Shiva, Sila, Ngai, Agazu? Oh no, here we are en famille. For a mummy, for a big daddy. For Aga­ memnon, for Jocasta. For mummy. for daddy. That-is civilized nudity. It is also capitalist nud­ ity. Der Spiegel features it every week; it goes with the Leicas and the Porsches. in short, there is, on the ant;. hand, a going be­ yond the primary process libido to the organization man. The dissolute, disintegrated savage condition. with the perverse and monstrous extension of an ero­ togenic surface, pursuing its surface effects, over a closed and inert, sterile body without organs, one with the earth itself-this condition is overcome, by the emergence of, the dominion of, the natural and the functional. The sane body, the working body, free, sovereign, poised, whose proportion, equilibrium and ease are such that it dominates the landscape and com­ mands itself at each moment. Mercury, Juno. Olympic ideal. And. on the other hand, there has occurred a phallicization. Such a nakedness, healthy and sover­ eign, is at the same time nothing but the �ry image, the very presence of a lack. It caBs for the other, tor kisses and caresses, for the one that exists veritably qua lack-of-a-phal!us. It cannot disrobe itself without the rest period after the treat­ ment. We are not opposed to such efforts, but the most Import­ ant requirement 15 to ovoid ob­ servation of. the treatment by patients who are not only fright­ ened themselves but through their reports contribute to the opposition against the treatment by others. COMPLICATIONS Complications In convulsive therapy were much publld-zed. They are stilI overemphasl"Zed by many psychiatrists. The recog­ nbed concept of nil nocere re­ mains the basic concept for every physician, but it is not meant to lead to therapeutic nihilism. The surgeon does not refuse a nec­ enary operation because of its impending risks. Since active therapy Is available in psychiatry, it should be used for the benefit of many patients even though a few may develop undesirable complications. Fortunately, fatal complications In convulsive ther­ apy are exfremely rar•. We agree with Sargant and Slot.,'s stat.m.nt that mental dlsord.rs are as destructlv. as a malignant growth and for more terrible in the suffering they may cause. Rlsb are therefore justi­ fied. It 15 gratifying that the Penn· sylvania Oepartment of Justice, quoted by Overholser, express.d an opinion to the effect that ECT is of recognl-zed value and, there· fOre, may be applied to mental patients without the consent of the patient or his family. Frocfunu and O/Sciof;otlons: The most frequent complications in convulsive therapy were froc· tures caused by muscular con­ traction. The typ.s of fractures occurring in metra-zol and ECT are essentially the same and, there· for., will be discussed together. They have in common the fact thc:it th.y seem to occur during the first sudden muscular can· troction when many observers had reported hearing th. flrd cracking of a bone. The fre­ quently sudden onset of artificial convulsions may explain why fractures occur in this treatment but or. seldom seen In .pUeptics who customarily go slowly Into the tonic phase of the convulsion. This is also substantiated by th. fact thot with the more sudden and lightning-like onset In metro- 102 %01 convulsions, fracture. or. mar. frequent than In ECT. The delayed ele-etrle convulsion should. themare, b. the least lIkely to produce fractures, but delay.d sab:u,... are difficult to obtain due to inability to ••tlmate the nec.ssary dosage. Lately, we hove mode every eHort to us. thre.hhold stimuli even If we have to repctaf the stimulation two, thr•• or more time. In suc' cession. In the hope of obtaining a slowly developing .elzur•• Th. application of (I petit mol ,.. sponse, followed Immediately by a second convulsive stimulus, II another us.ful measure as In this way the pcztlenl goes Into the convulsion with a r.laxed mus­ culature-. This procedure Is espe­ cially de-slrobl. If the potlent I. very tens. or .truggle, against the treatment. Hyperextension of the spine wos recommended beeouse the spine seems to bend forward dur­ Ing the convulsion. An Important attempt to clarify this problem was made by Flordh, who demon� strated under x�roy control that the vertebNfI column during the treotment ls nat bent forward but camprelied In a longitudinal di­ rection. This mechanism would suggest that no position can di­ minish the danger of fractures. Special treatment of these ver­ tebral fractures Is nol Indicated and will frighten the patient un' necessarily. Originally, ortho­ pedic appliances were recom­ mended but they are superflu­ ous. Schmieder found that when treatment is continued after a few weeks, compressed verte­ brae are more resistant to new damage than are healthy ones.. We continued such patients and we have sometimes seen even the pain disappear during subse. quent treatments. burpled from: SomatIc Treotments In PsychIatry by lo,hor 8. Kallnow. dry, M.D. and Po"" H. Hoch, M.D., Grune & SfrO'tton SHOCKED In 1966, 1971 and 19741 wos 0 patient in Glen Eden In Warren, Michigan. I believe I was in the hospital between 1971 and 1974 also however I have no memory . of It due to my shock treatments. The exact dates can b. obtained from hospital records. being that visible, palpable lack, that want. And through and through. We civilized ones feel not only a repugnance for the unnat uralness, the unhealthiness, the ugliness of that tatooed nakedness the savage affects: we find it puerile and shanow. The savage fixing his identity on his skin . . . Our identity is inward, it is our functional integrity as machines to produce a certain civilized, that is, coded, type of actions. What then is this thing about savages? Who, in­ stead of laking that train to the beaches of Sylt, flies off (0 the savages-with a ton and a half of gear, shipped air freight? Very civilized people, no? Capitalists. To be sure, capitalism goes everywhere, and goes to the savages too, to capitalize on them. The hour is lale, in history; savagery cannot go on for much longer. It's the lot of savages (0 get civilized. To get despotized, first, tyrannized. Then colonized. Then civilized. Priests go to them, and colonels, on a mis­ sion, and executive managers, on safari. In short, capitalists, to civilize them. BUI there are also some few nuts-schizophrenics -themselves highly civilized and capitalized, who gO 103 to them, in order to go back to or forward to savageryl Whose libido is such that that is w}1at turns them on, But they are the nuts of capitalism, Extra parts, surplus products produced by capitalist means of production, For capitalism is the stage in which all the ex­ citations, all the pleasures and the pains produced on the surface of life are inscribed, recorded. fixed, coded on the transcendent body of capital. Every pain costs something, every girl at the bar, every day off, every hangover, every pregnancy; and every pleasure is worth something. The abstract and universal body of capital fixes and codeS", every excitation. They are no longer, as in the bush, inscribed on the bare surface of the earth. Each subjective moment takes place as a momentary and singular pleasure and pain recorded On the vast body of capital circulating its inner fluxes. Kant understood this when he wrote. in The Meta­ physical Principles of Virfue. that a man, as a sen­ Suous being, is a commodity whose "skill and diligence in labor have a market value; wit, lively ima­ gination, and humor have a fancy value . . . . " but that money. which purchases all th]lt. and measures its value, and which is abstract and independent of its rna- In 1966 1 we-nt becO'use I was depressed with family proble-ms ond wonted morrloge- counse-I· Ing. I sow 0' psychiatrist, Dr. Morris Goldin, whose- nome- I obtolne-d from Catholic Social Se-rvlces, Or. Goldin told me that the-re- was nothing wrong with my marriage: that I WO'S emotionally sick and should sign myself In to Glen Ede-n. I did this becouse I r. spe-cted him and belleve-d him to be on authority on mental health. He told me that I should have shock 'reotme-nt and that it would not hurt me or my unborn child (I was four months preg­ nont), He did not worn me of the dO'nge-.., of shock tre-Olmont and I hlieve- It wos glve-n to me- with­ out informod conse-nt. I hod the-m on Monday, We-dnesdO'y and fri­ day for one month until my Blue­ Cross Cove-rogo rO'n out ot wh1eh point he- recommende-d to my husband that I be- tronsforred to Pontiac. I om Indope-ndont by no­ ture- but be-come- very Ilcromble-d and compliant ofter Ihe- tre-at· me-",. When my husbond took me­ home I wall borde-ring on COlO­ tonic. I would store at the wall for hour5. He would have me- hold our ne-wborn boby and slop my 'ace genlly to try to snO'P me out of it. We hod to hire- 0' womO'n be­ couse- I could not toke core of house or function. Through the e-norts of my husband and my­ self, In one year I become- better ogoln. In 1971 my lothe-r dle-d O'nd my morrloge- wos foiling. I de-clde-d to ge-l a divorce- and wos feeling down. My husband ,olke-d me into going bock to Dr. Goldin and I agreed to do It to try 10 save our mO'rrlage-. AgO'ln I O'sked for a morriage counselor. Dr. Goldin sold I should have more shock Ire-olment which I did until my in­ suronce- ron out O'goln and I we-nt home. For thre-e- years I couldn't work or watch TV. I hod to drop out of colle-ge-. My memory was leriously damage-d. I used flash· cords fo learn to spe-ok English woll ogoln; as there we-re mO'ny words which I simply did not know anymore. As on omote-ur writer I found this very distres­ sing. Many books thot I have- read are- unkown to me now: as are­ some neighbor5, frle-nds ond many events. Whot I '89ret very much, Is the loss of many, many precious memories of my child· ren growln9 up-I Simply don't 104 have them. Seven years of my exldenc:e are almost wiped out. I had believed that my mental m· neSS was the sou(ce of my trou­ bl•. Now I realixe that the shock treotm4mts I had nearly de' stroyed me. AFFIDAVIT Sept.mbe 18, 1976 I, J_n Rosenbaum, M.O" of P.O. Box 401, Durango, Colorado 81301 do hereby oHest thot the following statements made by me Gr. true ood accurate to the besl of my knowledge: That I om currently the Dirac­ tor �f Child Development and Family Guldonce Instltut. In Our· o"go, Colorodo. That I have ",sided in Durango since May, 1972. That when I moved to Dur­ ango, I wos In the process of retiring. but due to the demands of numerous physicians and con­ sumers, ond due to their multiple complaints about mentol health services In this area, I ogr_d to open 0 limited practice aKering options to the cu"enl treatment modalities being used in Durango. Thot in the process of estab· IIshln g this proctlce, It was for· clbly brought to my attention 0 number of complaints about ex­ cessive use, misuse, and abuse of electro convulsive therapy (ECT) In the community. That I Investlgoted these complaints and found mony coses where the complaints we-r. valid. That Dr. Howard Winkler is the only psychlotrist In Durango who uses ECT. That when I wos asked bY,Dr. Wlnkl.r in 1972 to cover his hos­ pital practke, I refused, as this would have put me In collusion to practice that which I considered to be unethical medicine. That In the process of further Investigation, I come to know Rodney Barker, editor of the An/mas Journal, In 1975. Inde­ pendently of my Inleresh, Rod was Investigating complaints about excessive use of ECT in Durango. That to my persanal knowl­ edge, he contacted the following· agencies in order to obtain docu· mentation: Mercy Hospital, Our· ango; State Deportment of In- (erial, paper or metal, token!), is of preeminent value. At this advanced stage of capitalism, one has lost a lot of regional, territorial, dvil, professional identities; one is fina!1y more and more a pure succession of pleasures and pains, of surface moments of subject­ ivity, forming and disintegrating at the surface where there are intensive couplings with what the flux of capita! washes by. The human, phallic protest is in reality a last-ditch expedient. This effort to congeal into a unit, a func­ tional whole, and maintain that by one's own efforts, in the universal gym and on the bicycle that you ride without going anywhere, in your bathroom. And by this form of identity (0 be something someone needs. Not capitalism, of course, which just needs hands, and brains. Someone, a human being. A woman, lack of a phallus. A man, bearer of a phallus. It's a little discouraging, after all these years, to realize that the problem boils down to that 'Of the one and the many, more exactly, of the nature of the ident­ ity involved in subjectivity. The arithmetical solution seemed the simplest, to the Western mind; ascribe everything to a transcendental ego. What one has, in the air·conditioned bedroom, is an entity: a man, a woman. A phallic machine, coupled on to a woman, a womb. The subject, to which this complex, but everywhere lined up, operation i� predicated, the subject which is affected by it an and contented with it all, is a unit, a transcendent selfsameness. It's behind everything, the information-seat, it's under every­ thing, the support or substrate. But let's try, now, to see things from the libidinal point of view, where the egos are multiple and super­ ficial, surface effects. They form at the couplings, where an excess potential develops. A mouth, it's adjustable. It can couple on to a nipple�or a bottle, or a thumb. A hand can curl around a breast, or an arm, or another hand, or a penis. An ear is an orifice in which YOIl can insert mother's or lover's babble, or a finger, or a penis, or a cheetah's tooth. A baby in a buggy, a savage in the bush, proceeds by bricolage, and not by blueprint. As long as the inner sack is filled, what does it matter? The body without organs is profoundly indifferent to these surface couplings. No ego still burn� in the suffocating morass down in there, in fhat, Jd. The moments of subjectivity, of pleasure tormented with itself, of torment incandescent with itself, are all on the surface. As a result the egos that form are not necessarily of the male, lack of a vagina, form, and of the female, lack of a penis, form. There are lips sucked out on my thighs--places where the green mamba kissed me, and these incisions that remain, to mark the pain and the pleasure. The couplings multiply, extend the libidinal zone. They \eave their marks, so that one can return to them, or, more exactly, so that an egoism can take pleasure at these points where tensions accumulate, 105 can consume that surplus energy. We have to not only fasten our attention to these multiple and unstable erotic identities, which requires a certain discipline so that we do not slide back into our civilized habit of just ascribing everything to some ineffable, transcendental, but simple, selfsame ego activating everything. We also have to try Ip maintain that strange neoplatonic logic of identity involved in the Id, in the closed and full vesicle whose membrane is irritated and inscribed by these excitements, and which is all closed in itself. inert and sterile. and yet is indistinguishable from dirt. from the closed body of the earth itself-like the One in Plotinus from which emanates another one, which cannot get out of it enough to make two. These cuts and scars on the face of a Yoruba are the claw-marks of Agazu, but they are not jUst zones of his body destroyed by the totemic leopard, for they are his pleasure and his pride and his very identity. He arises, out of this coupling, as the one that was strong enough to be chosen by, and to hold the embrace of, the leopard. And this identity, this subjectivity, is not just attached to the physiological unit of this Yoruba male, it is attached 10 the leopard land. What social security identity, by number, can compare with this identity born in pain and pleasure, voluptuous identity? It belongs to the nature of graffiti not to pay heed to borders, to spread right over obstacles, to make walls of different angles, doors, openings all the sup­ port of one inscription that pursues itselL The in­ scription extends the erotogenic surface. It is also a first codification of desire. Not coding in the sense that the operation of every machine, of every gene and cell carries its own code, by which its operations are internally determined. Codification in the sense of conventionalization, socialization. But this socialization is already oppression, forced from the outside but working within by repression. We said that these incisions. these welts and raised scars, these graphics, are not signs; they are intensive points. They do not refer to intentions in an inner individual psychic depth, not to meanings or concepts in some transcendent beyond. They reverberate one another. But they are lined up. Warts and scarifica­ tions in rows, in circles, in swastikas, in zigzags. What is the nature of the system involved? These are, for the most part, not representations. The Japan­ ese art of tatooing pictures of animals, people and landscapes on the body belongs to civilization and not to savagery. But the patterns of marks are also not governed by a logical grammar. Thus we have to fix the level at which inscription is neither representational, pictogrammic, commanded by sensuous originals, nor alphabetical, made to correspond to phonic originals, nor ideogrammic or logical, corresponding to a conceptual order, to ideal stltullons {Colorado}; State D.. portment of Sodal Services (Colorodo): and Colorodo Foun­ dation for Medical Care. That he was refused Infor­ mation on an public cases, with· out ellceptlon. That one such case that was brought to my attention was that of X. A letter 01 authorization was obtained from her by me to exa­ mine her medical records an or about February 18, 1976. I ex_ amined her records of a psychia_ tric hospitalization at Community Hospital, Durango. That in studying these rec· ords, I observed that on informed consent ogreement was not fmed out by the patient. Neither was a separate Informed consent agreement filled out or signed by the potlent. That I further observed that the administration of ECT did nOf coindde with the diagnosis of the patient. She was originally ad­ mitted to Community Hospital with the diagnosis of a person· allty disorder 01 an hysterical type. a diagnOSiS for which ECT is absolutely counter-Indicated ac· cording to the guidelines for use of ECT as provided by the Ameri· can Psychiatric Assodation. That she was readmitted to the hospital one month later with a change of diagnosis to severe depressive reaction, asthmatic bronchitis, and thyroid disorder. lhere was no history of either of these medical conditions. Also, both of these conditions would rule out the use of Eel. She reo celved a series of sill (6) shocks at this time. Shortly thereafter. she made a suicide attempt. That subsequently, I was re­ fused access to these records by the hospital administration, and furthermore, denied a copy of sold records. That In the process of Inves'l_ gating the numerous unethical psychiatric practices In Durango, I discovered that they were wide­ spread throughout the country. That as a result of this, I recently resigned my seventeen year membership in the Amerl· can Psychiatric Association, as this organization has consistently refused to take a stand against fully r.cognit..d members who daily and on a massive bosis, violate the ethics of medicine. That I have 0150 observed many other �ases of misuse of eCT, Induding its odmlnlstratlon to �hlldren In Durango. That I have no motivation of a monetary nature, as I am finan­ cloily Independent and In the process of reUrement. That I hove become a memo ber of the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights for the purpose of erodlcGflng unethl�al psychla. trir; practice, In this area and this ,tote. Renorch Contributions by the Citizen's Commission on HUmon Rights. PSYCHIATRY eVALUATED John Suggs, Appellee •. J. edwin laVallee, Superintendent Clinton S,ate Correctional Institution, Appellant. KAUfMAN. Chle'Judge: (concur­ ring) I concur In Judge Oakes' meticulous and well·rtJOsoned ciplnlon. I would merely add thot his painstaking eJt'position of the unfortunate details of Suggs', "�aming of age" points to an emerging ond highly significant problem In the low, nomely. the troubled relotlonshlp between the vagories of psychiatric evol· uation and the difficulties of judiclol determinations of In­ competence. At the time of Suggs's plea, before one could be deemed Incompetent to stond trial In New York, a iudidld find· Ing wos required that he WtlS In "such a stote of idiocy, Imbecility or Insanity as to be incapable of understanding the chorges against him or the proceedings, . or of moking his defense .... New York Code of Crlm. Proc. §662b(l) (McKinney Supp. 1970). Of course, psych/otrlsts ore Invariably enlisted to aid In such determinotions. Yet, psychiotry Is ot best on Inexad science, If, ,nd.-d, lt is 0 sdence, locklngthe coherent set of proven under­ lyin9 ,,:,olues necessary for ulti· 101 merle decisions on knowledge or camp.tence. It Is suited, as It should be, to the dlClgnoses of ill· nen or maladiustment for the purposes of tntofment. Judges, on the other hand, while pro­ vided with (I set of determinate volues through the devvlopment of legal principles, simply lock the expertise to apply meaning­ ful standards in Individual cases. And, unfortunately, because of the imprecision of the norms In this area, much Is lost In the translation from psychiatrist to ludge or lury, between diagnosis and decision. This problem is even more striking where on In­ dividual Is found not guilty by reason of Insonlty. There, the ab· sence of a coherent psychiatric notion of YoHtion ond of work­ able legal stondords r.sults, It has been repeatedly claimed, 'n the administration of ad hoe: justice. Throughout his tortuous ten year history In the e:ourts and In the psye:hiatrie: cllnl($, John Suggs- was-and stili Is-a victim of our InabJlity to deal adequat.. Iy with this dilemma. It Is clear from the record that his behavior Is blnaro and destruc:tive, and that he has never had mue:h mare than a tenuous grasp on reality. Perhaps Dr. Mossingor's as· !essmont af his e:andllian as "emotionally unstable, with de­ prossive and paranoid tronds" Is corroa; perhaps Dr'-Lubin's dlag· nosis of his e:andlflan of "se:hi:r:o­ phrenla" may be more accurate. fortunately, we neod not roas­ sess tho medie:al testimony. Judge Duffy, who e:onsldered Suggs's e:amplote psye:hlatrle: his­ tory for the fint time, was clearly e:orrect In his dedslon to redeler· mine the ilSuo of Suggs's e:ompo­ lene:e at plea, and his findings havo ample support in the ree:· ord. Yet. ono cannat holp but have the gnawing uncertainty, In dedd'ng after ten yoars that dvil e:ommitmont proceedings might be appraprlato. whethor both ludges and psy(hiatrists havo led Suggs on a long day's journey Into night. UNITED STATES COURT Of APPEALS fOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT No. 137-September Torm, 1977 (Argued September 2, 1977 Deddttd January 2 1 , 1978) Ooe:ket No. 77·2053 Bernard-Henri Levy The Argentine 'Model' Robert Guidice. 50 years old, a merchant by trade, lives on Para· guay Str••t. He asked to $•• me, and despite my reservations, In­ sisted that I print his name. He sat before me, slouched In an armchair, and I hod the stronge Imprlltn!on that while h. was speaking to me. he neither lOW nor heard anything. He was nothing more than a hollow, monotonous ,yolce. narrating anonymously and absenl-mind· edly. It wos nonetheleu his own story that h. came to tell me. An atrocious and unbellevoble story of a "lIving·death". It all b&gan (I year ogo, one winl.r night, when a group of men broke Into his house on Paraguay Str••t. Everyone was herd.d Into the dining room: Guidice and his wife, their oldest doughter. age twenty_two, and the three small children, ages eight, nine, and eleven, She was the one for whom these un­ known men had come. The next day , when Guidice went to the police, they at first refused to register his writ of habeas cor· pus. "Your daughter", they tald him, ''has undoubtedly been kid­ napped by an unofficial group. We'll find her sooner or later, but only if you keep your mouth shut and take your misfortune pa­ tiently." Months went by, cast in an un­ Imaginable atmosphere. Perlodl· cally, a policeman would come by to collect five or ten thousand pesos in exchang e for meager, useless bits of Information. One forms. They are, we said, lined up with one another, the duplication is lateral, in the same plane. Penises and fingers, vaginal, oral and anal orifices repeating themselves. The repetition across time of intensive discharges of which they are the centers gives rise to a repetion of intensive centers across space. But putting it that way is to speak as though we have a time and a space already given apriori, in which the excitations occur, repeating themselves and projecting new sites for themselves. In fact it is the pulse of intensification and discharge that is the first form of a moment in life, and the libidinal impulses first mark out , or temporalize, a time made of moment upon moment. And it is the incision and tumescence of new intensive pOints, pain-pleasure points, t\lat first extends the erotogenic extension. What we have, then, is a spacing, a distributive system of marks. They form not representations and not signifYing chains, but figures, figures of intensive points, whose law of systematic distribution is lateral and immanent, horizontal and not transverse. This Nuba belly is a chessboard or pin­ ball machine; there are places marked, fixed, but each place communicates laterally with further places, and the ball you shoot into it can jump in any direction from any place, according to the force with which it SpIllS. $0 far we have been envisaging the inscription purely as productive. By its material operation-by the incisions, the scarification-and by its systematic dis­ tributive spacing-which proceeds by repetition and divergence-it extends the erotogenic surface, pro­ duces a place or a plane productive of pleasurable tor­ ments, of volup!l1oUS moments of subjectivity. But these very �ame intensive points now become de­ mands, appeals. For something, someone, absent. They become marks for another, they form the gaping opcnness of a demand, a want, a desire, a hunger. They have not yet become signs-for what they refer to is not something ideal, transcendent meaning, but another intensive point; these scarifications, these raised hardnesses on the pliable flesh cal! for another's eyc, another's touch, finger, nipple, tongue, penis. The reference becomes a lack, and its direction unilatcral. As I say. this is not yet a semiotic system. Yet it is out of this kind of distributive movement of in­ scription that the differen!inted material for a semiotic system will be taken, and on this purely lateral and llbidinal function of craving and want that the inten­ tiona! reference of signs will be developed. What is disturbing is the reversal we find here: an intensive mark, produced by vuluptuous pain and pro­ ductive of pleasurdble torments, becomes a point of lack, demand, and craving. But there hal; not been a dialectical reversal, from potentia! to craving, from positive to negative. They are both there, in something 109 less than a synthesis. There has occurred a kind of de� pression, a hollowing out, such that the force and excitation of an intensity, productive of an egoism, a local and intensive subject to consume it, becomes now the force of a craving for another, becomes a demand for, an appeal to another. This depression is the very locus of repression and oppression; here is the vortex where the explosive libidinal excitations are repressed, and where the force of oppression by the social body invests the -singular one. Here begins the breeding of the herd animal, a form of life in which every impulse is felt as a want, in which every excitation, every libidinal intensity that prodUces a moment of subjectivity, appeals to the herd. The ephemeral singularity of subjectivity becomes intrinsically gregarious; the human animal becomes socialized. Nietzsche wrote that only the least and worst part of our life becomes conscious, that is, gets verbalized, gets put into signs. Bul more profoundly it is al! our impulses, an our libidinal intensities productive of moments of subjectivity, that get transformed into signs, that is, into wants, demands addressed to another, appeals made to another. A subjectivity com­ pletely made of impulses, we become a bundle of needs, of wants, servile animals, consumers. The force of the libidinal excitations becomes the sniveling need to be loved, AI! our productive forces, all the surplus excitation produced on the libidinal surface, only serves to bind us into herds of animals' that need one another. The intensive surface of our life is exposed to the public eye, not to the eye that feels and caresses, that is pained and exhilarated, but to the judging eye, the eye that appraises and evaluates, rewards, redeems, and blames, culpabilizes. The eye that makes human animals ashamed of their nakedness. But these must not be taken as successive opera­ tions. There is a kind of inscription that decrees, condemns and punishes�a!l at once. Kafka depicted it in The Penal Colony: the punishment is to be strapped into the machine that cuts into living flesh, engraving on the prisoner himself, and thereby making known for the first time, both the sentence and the law itsef. This kind of machine, contrived in the bush, is especially circumcision and clitoridectomy_ Their su­ premely public character is essential to them, and contrasts with the scarification, cicatrization and ta­ tooing one warrior, one woman, does on another. They appear, we already noted, as the high-point of the tribal self-celebration, and efforts- to abolish them, by missionaries, shepherds of foreign herds, or by public health officials, are resisted vehemently, as though the very existence of the tribal bond itself were at stake. Circumcision and clitoridectomy, done at 1 2 t o 14 years, and without anaesthesia o r hygiene, i s an extremely painful torture, done by the public in one's most sensitive and pleasure-producing zone. This in- day, however, on the verge of a breakdown and In desperation, Guidice broke down, and with­ out warning, decided to contad the Ecumenical Commission for Human Rights: Th.,e was an im­ mediate roodIon; one week IQter he WQ, kidnapped, ond led blindfolded to a de.erted hous. In the .uburbs of the capital. Ther., h. wa. r.unlt.d with hi. dQughter. now un«u:ognl:table, emQcioted, almost toothless; her body was covered with wounds, and she was severely burned on the neck, breast. and ,tomach, by electrodes. At this point the nightmare r.­ .umed before his very eyes, the eye. of 0 father, drowned In .ad· ness and despair. A rat was in­ sert.d through the young girl·s vagina Into her stomach. As Q re­ suit, she died. Can we soy ,hQ, Guldic•. who was fre.d shortly thereafter, is really allv. today? It was deQr to m. ,hQt thous­ ands of th.se tragediflos hov. taken plac. within the past two years. An archlted from Rosario told me thot th.r. isn·t on. Ar­ gentinian who hasn't been dl· rectly or Indirwly Involved at least once. And nevertheless It 1, very rare for anyone to spanton· eously talk about it. It's difficult even to mention the sublect without wQtchlng the most frl.ndly focflo Instantly freeze. No. no one knows, . . No on. wants to talk about It . . _ GenerQlly speaking, the terror In Argentina Isn't as massively and Indecently evident as we 50 willingly Imagine from alar. It Is on infinitely more diffuse, CQPpll· lory, and doistered system. x, who knows more than a little bit about It. even ciQims to have learned the skill at the beginning of his career, within the walls of the famous Morine Academy. "Here, the prisoners Gre G5'igned to small, very mobile units. They are never tortured for long in the some place. The some goes lor the torturers; they are never allowed to torture for a long time. nor do they return to the some prisoners. Everyone circulQtes ceaselessly. Some· times, we too have hGd enough. So, they don't give us the chance to get to know one another very well, to get together and talk about It." There Qte none of Pinochet's concentration camps, no pocked stadiums; only small 0, V 1, ". ,J'\.. ... \. .", " 'v .. .:," " 112 houses, cellars and apartments, a total of sixty for all of Buenos Aires, dispersed throughout th. suburbs. Floating torture cen· t.rs, Ilk. the "Bahia Agulrr.... In short, a kind of archipelago whose geography grows more and mar. elaborat•. Thus, lt Is not rare thot In order to create confusion and to cover up the froc.s, small groups of prisoners are transferred, with­ out apparent reason . from one center to anoth.r. Sometimes, two or three of them Clf. set fr•• ot th. door of the prison only to b. imm.dia�.ly picked up by a new team who toke them ClWOY to 0 new cent.r. Prison adminis· tratlon con then point to the rec' ords showing fhot the missing persons left th.lr units sof. and sound. Even though at thot very moment, they are again on their knees In some elandenstine eel· lor being tortured • . . To this day, latin America has had the sad privilege of embody· ing th. t.rrors of a particularly omniscient sta'e. Nevertheless, the continent under Videla Is being modernized and new fear accompanies newly the equipped and technologically trained police who operate In the shadows, In silence. Compared to the long tradition of tropical fascism, it b perhaps this Inno­ vation which makes for the orig· Inolltyof th. "Argentine Model" . Excerpted from Le Nouvel Obser· vateur, June 5, 1978 Torture In Argentina They immediately put cotton ov.r my eyes and bound th.m with masking tape so that , would not see their faces. But since the cotton becam. quickly soaked, I was obi. to see by throwing my head back. , real­ Ixed that we were in a house and not In a military camp as Ihtty wanted mtt 10 bellevtt. I was also able to s_ a young man who was despalredly crying. , moved doser to talk to him when our guards hod 'eft us alone for a moment and I learned that at the marine Academy they had tor· lured his wife In a terrifying manner; they cut off her hands at the wrists with a hacksaw. caus­ ing a hemorroge so great that tial, accumulating on the surface, consumed by local and momentary egoisms. What is beneath, what is the fuJI and sated body upon whose surface they effer· vesce? An anonymous, sterile and inert body, a certain stock whose worth is determined by the universal body without organs of capital, which measures everything and distributes all the pleasures and pains. Itself just a fund of capital, then. This kind of dehumanized, de­ phallicized, insignificant . . . entity is the final product of capitalism. I was going to say: this kind of subjec­ tivity-but what there is here is not a subjectivity, but a split, fragmented, dismembered, disintegrated field of momentary subjectivities, forming in pleasure and pain. Schizophrenicized subjectivity. And it is this kind of schizo personality that goes off to the savages. Not to live with them as among broth­ ers and sisters. Not to find real men, and real women, finally, to fill up that aching hole, that phallic lack you have made of yourself. But to feel the sun in the empty savanna, to stand in antedeluvian landscapes un· marked by all history, malignant bush country, whit­ ish plains without contour Or dimensions where there is nothing moving but the termites and the tsetse flies, the squalor of eternity . . And to collect pictures, some beads and neck hang­ ings, some feliches, some warthog's teeth, to stick in your mouth, to suck, and to get i n some hours flying a private twoseater over the Mountains of the Moon, parasailing alongside the Indian Ocean, scuba-diving in equatorial waters. Putting together your own plea­ sure chains, out of the debris of civilization, not according to its codes, by bricolage. Like savages do. But driven by a libido that wants to wander off to the land where there are those who are kissed by the green mamba, who are strong enough to be chosen by, and to hold the embrace of, the leopard. -February, 1978 Kenya 113 sh. died within (I few minutes. Ha hod olso seen them cui a women In two, from her vagina to her head. And because h. saw this, they were going to kill him also. I was so terrified that I dragged myself for away from him and spoke 10 him no more, so horrified was 1 by his account. I remained thor. se"eral days, night and day haunted by the cries of those being tortured. Fi· nally. I was set fre•. They drove me Into the dty, blindfolded and hood.d, Insulting me and sholSt· Ing 011 the while that the next time, they would treot me with less tenderneu-they would kill me right away. Then Ih.y left me. _Translated by Tom Goro Testimony of Emo Poroflorito, re_ corded by the Argentine Com­ miuion on Human Rights. 'Ae.adelnk Approach to Torture Mr. MitIione, �ead of the United States Agency for International Development's publk safety program in Montevideo.. was killed by Uruguay's TUpamaro guer­ rillasfollOWing his kidnapping in 1970. At the time, the State Department denied charges by leftists that Mr. Mit rione had participated .In the torture of palitial pm.no.... "Ifyou ask me whether any American official partidpated in torture, I'd say yes, Dan Mitrione participated," Mr. Hevia said at a news conference. "If yoo ask me whether there were interroga� tinns, I'd say no, beeause the unfortunate beggars whO were being tortured had no way Of answering �use, they were asked nO questions. They were merely guinea pigs to shOW the effect of electric shock on different parts of the buma:n bOily. M-r:. Hevia, Who attetlded high �hool at Watertown. COM., in the early SO's and speaks perlect English, said that the in­ terrogation ·courses brought by Mr. Mit none involved the use of electric Shock!: speciaJ chemicals and nwdem psyclJolog� ical techniques against detainees. "'[he special hOrror of the course was Its academic, almost clinical atmos­ phere," he recalled. "Mitrione was a per:. fectionist. He was coldly efficient, he in­ sisted on economy of eHort. His motto was: 'UIe right pain in the right place at the right time.' A premature death, he WOUld say. meant that the technique had failed. .. ·1". .I...y"",,-,,_, �·ql'''8 Aerolinea<; Ar�entinas lll11l0Ul1Ces the lowest priccs to Soutli America, the best schedule to Soutl1 ,\meriea lll1d a1e worlds newest terminal. .\11 thi� I, '" ,\crolineas Aq.�entinas <umOllllees the lowest pl'iees to SOlltJl Amcrien. the best schedule to South .\lI1crica mu\ the wodd's llcm:st tennillaL !, \,'1"' ,::n,'"c. ,\I:""llliO:1:'- i� Pi" .ud 1, " UIIl"llll,-,' ' ·Hi" '1,'\1 \1 '1-::\" C'I\" , \, ' I' ,,1 ' , 1<", «,',;;0 1'1" 'III \,.,,-i( 1"1, t·, Blll'H' '" \,;, ". ;:77,:;, .\11 r< 'UllF] " -I ' ! • '. " , '., \,,1 n,;dll.l, ,1\ litle'" i I, In-I I'h'an Ii,,,d! \\O�kc,_� I Ii, " � , ' ',;' " I "" 11<,,11,1--. 1 , ',':" , c:' ;1 'h'h,�1 �ch,'dl l k l < ' �'lidl .\IlI'·ri,': , , 'I - "I\ ,>1,-1"1, in !!', "" I I I s <li,-, , I Ilj'.dI1� ,I \'. , \ I, 1 , . 1 11<,11' ,,, ,\'J, ' I I', I " " . : . , I I \n,-n.,� I,r,-". .\c'I' ,1"" ", \F-,:C H I ill.,� Il'I� I ' " i "\,, ,,,', I I"" ,II II " '1'-' " , I i i , " iU<h" I, \",T\ h""n"lh 1\ ' I I ; , 'iOl , ," [ i . ,H,," I ',n ·,Ii· '1 'J (Ill'� ,-i,kl "'e: ;m,J I, .,\ ,n�� Iii,' \ ', '11"11 \,,1 . . II , I�, . . ,I; ! I, 11I1I'i"I'.,lIHI ." li" I" k·, ,.11,,\\·, ' '"' h ,,:11 ,,1" , , " .,:, I' 'U,I.. ,! " 1 , " I .. , - , : . t , " ",','"""In \ \,·'Y !'la...:JUllo...r...n .Jli�" "'".;:w.",,L___";_-' Kathy Acker ( Pcst L Sl:trrfl : The Persian Poems 121. �· �ib t.o know .. rr 1. CUl:. 0 -\4 • .. . p 1I' .L.tjj I .,:) . . .u /. . . . 1w I� . . . . .ll . .) ... .GT . . .. . . . :J ) ;) I ) . )_,.:7 . . . ...t..;l '" ;$ , J8 .. . , <" / · . / .. . . . J ttl ... .luJ b ( PrE-S E n t sh. rm : / I. h E.. . - a n (. 0' f . �. \:. «( I) havE. bo y wa n t s U:. cams bEat up SO t ro b K i d ()o P k d .l k no w ' .• 117 118 123. , I, V ) , . . 1:: .r;;-; • beat up ro b kidnap to havs }am.y to buy JOnf_y to wont }anE.Y to �E.t. Ja n Ey to corm £.. JOnEY to E.O /: ;� Jam.Y1 JanEy to bE.ot up to rob Jan E.y to k i d nap '}OnE.y to k l LL JonE.Y to know J onc�y "\ 119 ;),,,....,.,... into .. t. hot EnqUsh : ) to thE- srmoLdHL n9 ship 's Wen. carry ing nn s a Lon9) CJ'ld "' ....... I .shouLdn I i: havE-. I should rry ffil S buoy a.nd iurm pf.d ovc:.r� -flag9Ed down a pa.ss Ln9 tramr: fb£.rs I �l I t 1 ewb.Ll o� ;)-10 blaCK hf.o d htrc:. ? grabb€.d ; and 000 Q strai9ht back t.o t: h£. A t.hw.5 t hs Q Gw \ oCrport. . � .) p ( .Jdn�y») i. e.s .. .'.1' . . '." " (LI ciS;> >- ii\i,{.i ,i':i!i! ,2. 125. l s n ' r tilt. pro pE.r t.'i .. III "/I) U 0t J"onE.'fJ / :. � .•. ) ,,� /). /rBJ.. � J+.J J"' Lw.., .. " IS Th�rE. OfUln Ony bla ck hEa dS 4. o� " I in t hE.. Te. hron. J�G ' , -1.- " l1, 1 Y/i\ " \ oL Lu.u \.(fJ . .. ) j-! J o/. J> j .. · G.wT ::>;}.5 r �·)·..c ':"' jT ). T J 3 / 5. ThE. shE-d.s +or Cl O lE. long t LrmE.. bLock. 'You You +Ofgd. havEn ) 1: haw t .. in UEd ( St.rISLtlVL you O lE,. You hur l::. H urt h u ri: hurt hur l: hurL "You nTl E.d. thE, i n t h E- wor l d and \fou tQ ll n l ct:. s l: in l OVE- wilh you mJQ\IOg E. to gd: Into his hOUS f_ o(ld 'You sland bE.�or s hilln. A gid 'You do and puts hErs Ur oui: on Cl L ins. A g ir L L.)ho 121 122 1 27 . �d;W Co. 7. 0,919 soul tOts � (w/& o)/j' G.ili f Is t hEn. on'{ +rEsh ffi'\E..Ot ? c.wT h S;� )Lo � J (/T..;\ $ J� �0 YE:.s M rs , .JOfl'C..'j ) 5. Dut 'four WE-ot �. is .. bdh.r t. ha n ( I , ,, .. .. / l.J,:) oS / ell Is t hCfE..oo'{ �ah. ? "G G.wl h- .J G J � J· T ·1) Gt; 1 f"'--l '1. 'YE.S M rs , "{our +otE.. 1 5 bd:h.r t. han .Ja 8. 10. I. . « VI • S / if ti l ) lJ y, A L L t hl:. pE.Opl 'C.. o rE.. cont Ent. ») .. . I ( I , "AI c..i) < .J u; J U.. . 123 Richard Foreman 14 Things I Tell MyseH when I fall into the trap of making the writing imitate "experience" 1. The art. . . aims to reflect something that "stands under" experience, rather than experience itself. Each situation we are in, each experience, quivers with the different not-yet-known.how-to-use ways in which the materials of that situation might otherwise be combined, organized, set to work upon each other. Against that free�play of elements as a backdrop, one (in life) makes one's choice of act, thought, gesture 125 (a choice always rules by the need to echo, imitate or extend previous choice�patterns in order that that choice shall fit within the pre-defined limits of the rationaL) But! It is those continually REJECTED choices of the backdrop, never articulated yet always present as the un-thought 'possible', which give plasticity and depth and aliveness to what is chosen. Our art thcn, to discover the secret of liveliness, shows by example not-what choice to make (as does all theater which imitates 'actions') but-shows, concretizes, that which-though <it cannot he chosen-stands under what is chosen, so that choice is alive and energized. The noHhought, the purposeless, which nourish all activity and experience. The acts of the play arc then a series of acts and gestures not-chosen in life, w.hich for that very reason serve as the roots of life's (or should we say consciousness's) liveliness. 2. The audience must watch not the object, not the invention, but the way in which the object twists, is displaced, distorted. But the important thing is to realize there is no agency responsible for this twisting, this distortion-there is a groundless displacement which is the very source of the play's meaning, and the very seat of consciousness (concretized by the play) itself. This groundless twist, picks up the objects at hand and fills them for a moment, gives them being for a moment, and then lets them fall back into the sea of the non-manifested. This groundless twist is the energy without a source about which we cannot speak-only ride its back as it were. The one choice we have is either seeing and experiencing-which means having no contact with the generating energy or standing-under seeing and experiencing, and so being where energy is; mis-matched with it-but the double condition of being-there and not matChing (i.e. distorting it) being the only real condition of self-reflexive 'knowing', which the play -also mis-matched but being-there, knows. 3. Our art then= a learning how to look at 'A' and 'B' and see not them but a relation that cannot be 'seen' You can't look at 'it' (that relation) because it IS the looking itself. That's where the looking (you) is, doing the looking. 4. The compositional principle is NOT anything goes but only write that which allows itself to be deflected by the world (which world includes the act of writing, of course). Most .st,uff you might write wouldn't be so deflected (and so must be rejected). Either it would be too porous, the world going through it without deflection; or too heavy, it wouldn't budge-or it's in -a sealed room where the world doesn't even notice it-hence no contact and no deflection. Writing is also the invoking (of the gap, the mis-matching, which is where we are as consciousness, and which is a force). The invoked energy or force isn't what gets written. It arises, then in the staging, but it isn't in the staging. The writing invokes the force WHEN that writing is then staged, so long as that staging is such that it allows the force to come. The staging doesn't make it (the force) but the staging gets the writing (which is the original invoking) out-of-the-way in the proper way, so that·then the force can be-there. 127 The force IS disassociation, consciousness, displacement, a groundless 'twist' . . . . so it is there ·and not there. It is 'other ', it is 'possibility', . . . not as a category, but as a force. 5. Writing has not a subject (aimed for) but is a being-responsiveness, to the currents within it as it generates itself. "It" is writing thru me, and it is doing other things also so try and show those other things. It's not the item; it's how one slides off it, leaving a wrent in the fabric. Theme: that slidingness: which can't be said, because to say IT would be to not-slide off IT being said. 6. One must find ways to sacrifice 'what comes' to onc in the writing. Offer it up. . . to what Gods? Destroy it as useful to us in daily life as-it-is. Rather serve it up to the elsewhere in us. The play is then a ceremonial ground. Certain operations are performed. Not to tell (you) something. Not to take (you) elsewhere. But an important and significant activity goes on which you watch or not watch. But it isn't there for you or for me, it's for the benefit of someone else, hidden within us both, who needs to be fed so that everyday you and me can still be alive in a way that has plasticity and aliveness of thought and perception. Understand, it's not a question of refining the GOALS of thought and action, but of keeping the process itself grounded in a. kind of energy that makes the process itself want to continue. 7. In writing (as one takes dictation from what wants to be written) the received is twisted. It (the received) looks at itself through the twist (which is yourself) and it (not-you) gets a sense of itself and proceeds. And then that which proceeds. . . is received, twisted, etc., and the process continues and a text is generated. 8. I'm lying on the bed. Looking toward the window. The curtain moves in the wind A motorcycle noise in the street stops some other process of watching going on in me. 1 write that down. Desire plays through me for a moment. Music from a window across the street and the sound of water running in the tub. 128 A level. Everything level for a moment. The writing is a certain thing The action of wind, etc., noticed but not thought about. is a certain thing. The writing is imprinting a certain noticing on a certain existent system. It never matches. That's why displacement is a rule, and a generative principle. o. . . . 0 . I make a model for the way it is. One can't express the real experience. Experience is one kind of making. Saying is one kind of making. The gap between is, of course, the source, the fuel. Mis·match Displacement. So I don't (try not to) notice thought But rather the gap between experience and thought input output passive active What l write (notate) is the gap. 9. The plays are. about what they do. Which is 10 concretize (show) a certain sort of system which goes�on i n mc. In which lived moments. . are open to displaced energy which is objectified as an energy that wants to handle and penetrate the object, and that handling and penetration twists, displaces, distorts the object (which is the lived moment). As a result the lived moment is denied as a selfsufficient experience . . . . and re-constituted as an energy­ exchange which, as it leaves the evidence of its being on the page being written, is no longer an experience but a mark. In the beginning: the mark. That mark, that concretized evidence is, for me, heavier, denser than experience itself.. The play is an energy diagram in four dimensions. A condensation of what goes on in me, objectified. I don't make pictures evoking the experience of things, but notate what circles through us, leaving a residual grid that makes experience then possible (registerable). That grid . . . made intense . . is the work of the play. Experience is then burned up, petrified, sacrificed on that intense grid of the play. 129 10. Within the play as an object, there must not be •A' theme, because one theme or meaning doses the doors on all others-and ALL THEMES AND MEANINGS MUST BE PRESENT AT ALL MOMENTS. The organization of the composition should dis·organize the ego (which is what wants a theme to be-at-home in) and evoke in the self the dispersed self (in which ALL themes are) . (Simple dada & surrealism don't do that. Nonsense. irrationality, don't do that, they don't dissolve the ego, they are rather anti-bodies which, injected, strengthen the ego. They wall themselves in from the world as non-sensical or supra-sensical, which only increases the need and ability of the ego to define its territory as against 'external' , irrational territory.) The OBJECT of the play, then, is to make the spectator be like the play (or recognize that he ;$ like the play) I am like the play (We are what interferes with us. Result, a kind of self-knowledge. But whose self-knowledge? There is no who. Only knowledge.) 11. Always, at the beginning (which means finally) a sentence wants to write itself. Then, that sentence suggests a next sentence, because of 130 habits of association, because of a world in which we are trained, taught that J;)nc thing must lead to another, that there are paths to be followed like responsibilities, etc, To escape that. Write the sentence that wants to be written. But then pull away from it-or from the inherited associations and commands and rules that cling to it. Pull away from it. Let something that inferferes. twist the sentence, as it emerges or in the next moment, as you look at it. There must be no theory of writing. The writing is the phrase or gesture that floods one and wants to be written, But then, there must be A theory of what to do after the writing has had its way and written itself as a word or sentence or sentence cluster. The 1st moment: What floods one. Then, twist it. Find ways to inhabit it, plant it in the world NOT as a tool, not as a lever to move the known in known ways, but to turn it into a self-reflexive item, around which a whole new world crystallizes. The 2nd movement In staging. . interfere. Let the sentence be so crystallized, become 80 intensely jt�elf, reflecting itself. . . that interference actual!y FEEDS it Strengthens it in its clear uniqueness by being not-it in a subtle and interfering way. 12. The choice is to discover what is (clarity) by seeing desire at work (not simply Jetting desire produce, because its products often cloud seeing). There is a choice-either seeing desire at work or Form production (which is to cover over what-is with 'what should be'). Make desire-energy produce a structure that is self_reflexive. That is, make desire as it produces, produce the right form, which is a form that will see itself (so that we can see, through it, since the desire is us, what+is-there). Is that not form production? Not really, because we are not speaking of willing a certain form and then 'using' desire to fill it. We are speaking of working on the desire itself, through conscious displacement, distortion, employing a strategy of identifying with what�interferes, Then, . , what is produced has the 'right' form whatever the fonn of what�is�produced, Because when the desire is producing, . . through identifying with what interferes there is a displacement, it doubles itself and so mismatched it sees itself. And the play is isomorphic with that activity of twisting, splitting-looking at itself. And the play at work is clear, not producing a form but producing a doubling, a displac.ement which is a real mirror, and clarity. 13. The meaning is in the suppositions that start one: In my case, small bits of experience and thought interfered withhow the unconscious and the world (the same) get.in-the-way, and how that interference is allowed. The text =- strat(.'gies for allowing the world to interfere, And making that interference one's own, as an oyster makes a pearl of the interfering, irritant, grain of sand. Now-what is interfered with is NOT a project, or aim, or narration but just being-there in one's self. If it is a narrative or project that is interfered with. then the self is still there. But interfere with just-being-there and the self is dispersed 14. So. . . Each moment has a different meaning, each moment a different theme. The piece is about making oneself available to a continual barrage of meanings and themes, so that one is transformed into a being spread, distributed a different configuration of the self. The composition always implies, no, no the meaning is not here, but elsewhere, spread. The piece is always pointing away from itself. Meaning is equally di!;tributed, everywhere. Classical art. everything is focused in on a certain theme, points to the center, each moment cohering. Here-each moment takes off in a dIfferent direction. The unity is the procedural way of turning away from the center. There is displacement, continual replacement of one meaning with another. There is a sequence of a certain sort of item, called 'possibleness of manipulation'. There is a straining after certain figures that the mind�as*a·body wants to articulate in space. 132 Exemplary titles: Book of Levers Action at a Distance Theme: Showing that mental acts take place on a surface, not in the depths. Depth as the ultimate fantasy. The ultimate evasion. Linked, of course, to a concept of center. So de-center. Displace. Allow thought to float up from the depths and rest on the surface. Look at it. . . handle it. Match your life to it . . as does the play. The play, finally, must be fed and 'cootroned' by a multitude of sources. As many as there are 'sources' of experience in one's own life. That multiplicity, acting in concert, becomes the 'unity' of the process of continual displacement. Only work to make sure no single displacement escapes the immediate interference which must arise in the next moment, allow no single displacement to begin to build a wall around itself and form its own kingdom, its own order of being. Such a kingdom or order would be a return to the sleep of experience within which most art keeps us forever imprisoned. Seth Neta To-Ana-No-Ye Anorexia Nervosa Anorexia Nervosa: A term we can discard, latin modular medical lingo identifying cipher of authority locating an anti-social practice (self starvation) within the field of disease/disorder/danger/crime. Medical business label. That day we often heard dogs barking some distance away. We assumed we were near a village and two comrades went to investigate hoping to get some water. They returned a few hours later, reporting there was no village. It seemed odd, a dog but no village; we We had a strict routine at the training camp. Early each morning we did tough exercises. While the cold weather lasted our group did them in the barracks, the others, however. trained in the snow. Then we changed for inspection and afterwards did marching drills. We also had an intensive course in Russian. On weekends we were taken to museums and historical sites. One morning as we rested under some trees, a youth with his cattle approached. We didn't want him to stumble on us as news of the presence of a large number of well armed Africans in the area would spread very fast. Before we could decide what to do he stopped and sat down by a creek some 50 yards away. Our troubles weren't over however. His cattle kept grazing closer and closer to our position. We'd silently chase them away so he wouldn't come after them but soon they'd graze close to us again. anything, then to have control over your body becomes a supreme accomplishment. You make out of your body your very own kingdom where you are the tyrant the absolute dictator. " In this frame of mind not to give Some will talk about it when they start to express their disgust with the female body later in college became quite popular. was disturbed by not feeling like her own person in relation to others. She described one episode: "I was sitting with these people but I felt a terrible fragmentation of myself. There wasn't a person inside at all. 1 tried with whoever i was with to reflect the image they had of me, to Bebavior Modification Professor Artbur Crisp (St. Georges Hospital, Tooting, London): I said provided you achieve certain goals you will be rewarded in certain ways, and unfortunately she stH! felt that she couldn't keep to this contract . BBC TV: And how did it work out, what were the rewards? Herr Crisp: Well the rewards were, for a start she was treated in bed as are most cases of this degree of severity and the arrangement was that when she reached a certain weight she would be allowed uh the sort of reward would be a visitor or two visitors or a telephone by the bed, and so it progressed so that at a certain stage she was a!lowed out of the bed for several hours, and out of bed for half a day, fully up, Clothed, able to move around the ward, go to occupational therapy, and so it progressed. 134 Occupational Therapy Reward The treatment/cure of anorexics is the process by which the Clinic/Hospital (medical production) through behavior modification, drug therapy. psychotherapy. and hyperalimentation (forced feeding which bypasses the mouth and digestive organs intravenously) returns/enslaves the anorexic to a healthy body capable of fulfilling the role of consumer/producer (producer of children. new workers, new consumers) prescribed to all organisms in a consumer economy. The clinic here is a factory whose product is healthy bodies, ROSA RIKE ROSA DORA ROSA CHIDOR DORA MORO ROSA MEINS ROSA DORO ROSA SHIDORA ROSA ADORO DORA KOLWEZI DORA MEINS ROSA YEMEN DORA ROSO ROSA MORO DORA MOURN ROSA AD ROSA KOLWESI disease/desire/disorder anti·organism ANTI-CORPORAL!ANTI·CORPORATE the body/arena for the exercise of control sex identity/de-identify ill/veil a job for medicine ANA�CORP�]�A Videotapes: Interviews to be recorded in hospital during treatment, texts read to the camera, putting words in their mouths, hyperalimentation monologues: Text Sampler LIFE HISTORIES OF THE REVOLUTION, LSM Press THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY, Tou�ner NEO COLONIALISM, Kwame Nkruma HOLGER MEINS, THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES, Red Army Fraction KEEP FIT TO EAT RIGHT, Adelle Suicide THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY, AND THE STATE, F. Engels PARIS MATCH 2 June, 1978 HORREUR A KOLWESI APPLIED PHARMACOLOGY REVIEWS (in-house medical publications) Adis Press POEMS OF AGHOSTINO NETO ;;:;-:c-9_�{'f­ The Hunger Disea se -- = .::Hre-GOLDEN-GAB-£­ The Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa Hilde Bruc h, M.D. psychotherapist shop fo�nan of hospital fa�tory prison research departments fo!' the de'.rel opnent of new methods of ""n"eo' 136 COERCIVE STRENGTH OF HUNGER STRIKES Holget Meins Rosa Meins be "in." All of a sudden everyone in school was wearing a nylon jacket around 1960. Then the FDJ' did something about these parkas, these caps that we had bought. They had security groups, and the FDl groups stood in front of the school and took away our nylon jackets. They argued that the jackets were stained with the blood of the Vietnamese-which was certainly possible. Well, this is where a whole process is ignited-a real problem: one starts to become Menstrual rhythm prison control over bleeding Brasch: Right from the beginning it was. To be honest I was rarely with my parents. My earliest years-up until I was four-were spent with a family of Social Democrats, who were workers and lived near the East train station. lowering temperature coma/orgasm forms. especially the kind of uniforms you have in the People's Army. Of course you end up with a frustrating situation-and it's the same in jail or parochial schools where there are young boys without any girls. something especially im­ portant when you're between 1 1 and 15. Regarding homoerotic relations: that's possible, but I didn't see much of it. You're usually so pooped that you don't much worry about your sexuality, outside of the usual masturbation scene. Our teachers were mixed; about 70 percent I'd say were officers and the other 30 percent civilians. biology or chemistry teachers-. The pressure to perform was pretty much the same one you find in similar schools. The year was divided into: September, which was the beginning of the school and training year, to January; then the annual winter camp in February, where we went into the mountains, into barracks in an isolated area, where we learned to ski and to shoot on skis and things like that. And during the same time we still had classes. Then we went back for more instruction and military training. In June we had the 50called summer camp on the Baltic Sea where we went on maneuvers with tanks and other things like that. And during that time there was no schooL After weight loss is measurable progress consuming and excreting is work NGC: Could you tell us more about the circumstances which caused this? For instance, these jackets. One doesn't become reactionary or progressive all of a sudden because of jackets. There are issues where things come to a head. POLITICS OF THE TREATMENT THE FEMALE BODY IS NOT BEAUTIFUL �u for ROSA YEMEN 1 egg scrambled with sh.1l sodium perborate sfenlb:e the mouth hobltuelos colorades, the red Intestines 200 omotryptUine medical attention 8 hour Y , . ..:;, + stomoch pump vomit up the - day 1 dozen eggs broken my eggs lilE C�AR� - POtJTICAL BE FUu:lu.ED. attending coma Internal bleeding Oe ICI mastlcCltlon MENU BY ROSA YEMEN. Prehension buccClle; Atfouchement-gustatlf-Langue Mecanisme de 10 macholre (temps determine selon I'aliment) Crachot.,ejedlon Geugarlsme bref. 1 gorge. de gordons 91n+ mouure de citron vert. (relet bref) f - �'" Bazooka Joe Story Joe is trapped in the flavor, extracted in the mouth (JOE HAS NO MOUTH) The body is perfumed/ connected. his empty body ejected/spat out. Nothing is swallowed, the organs are excluded from this rela­ tionship, a secret total consumption/excretion, to be repeated as often as desired. 1 deml louche de toboule (r.'et br") 1 olive noire ave<: noyau Sake en quantite (,ele<:t long) 1 cullleree a cafe de medleres fecales de poinon (rejet Indetermine) 1 blscotte (relet instantClne) Pendl + blanc d'aeuf BClceiava + Eau (relet brut) Ice + Chewlng"gum (lndetermlne) Type Cerebro-splnal de guerre froide 45% S%c@#Y. LA MASTICATION en relation dlrecte avec Ie bCllllemenf (dons les deux sens) Le lommell, sons 10 mosturbCltlon. CHOQS( FII(IM 12 SIMuvrtD G(MS. I '0« (ACtl MCNlH IN[)ICAH MONTH Of l"Iro;. ...· CO�!'S. 5£"'0 275 I-.lOO F�r b0n �'"9 red; 5udo"l'erihc ::ni'l€'( Ihren 'lur Air ('I(y'ce ,we, "up-'r:u "I'; 1'.1' A\-'\wCi,1 O:J\ "�,,e;ls;F' flJqw�J(;; CE'r -W€"f� JncJ do, groOte LR5holh .0111\( (-" s d U8H r-',r'�, nod, S'.JcicrrE"',I,{) zv r'''_''''r�'' ,- er I�t von Ho'pbcrg DU5>�t(jo1_ ''"..'h, )tc,i:CCHt ,y"C fk'111C' otv"eh. -, ;)(!"ocw' c', ube' r'onM",,; - t'!1d d'A�',( P,f '-'ocr. gE'ru,Jer W1r(j. hm Ar Frarv:e c" enrge flug-I(10 ih::'! .J-)(I" � c'''0 0bhl'rlE'n. 'If:\trf'''C:n?A .J . 'Pt£\'' ' d-e d'.0 F:U95(!E' (]I;,", ;T" � ,', S'P. I,' '" u 1,,,1"'1', lATA r-,'2,�f'DU.'O . . l" II" ',,, : (I" ,;],:tc-cl<,'" VLlZ I K E 1 ,// -" , "'T// I I tJ c:.. Andre Cadere Boy with Stick Sylvar. lOTRINGER: How would yail define your work? Andre CADERE: It', on indepen­ dent work. l: How does It differ from ony other Independent work? C: It differs in that It does not depend exclusively on the exist· Ing structur•• of ari. l: Whot dructure.d' Gallerie, and museums, I C; don't mean to soy that It dispens­ e. with them, but It can function elh.rwl.e. It's this margin thai Interests me, L: Whot gave you th" IrI.o of operatIng within fhe morglmri' C: It', very difficult to say. P.rhops It's because I (:omo from Roumonia, (I country whh:h Is outside the Western cultural sys. tern, Q totally marginal country. I come to France without money, without relations. With respect to the sodal order, I was nothing at all. I hod no means of support. The sale possibility thot was left for me was to do my work all alone, Independently of th. existing social system. But I don't want to play the Id.alist. The goal 15 to pen.trate the predoml. nant system. Andre Cadere, a Romanian art. ist, moved to Paris in 1'167. This interview took place In April, 1978 in New York where he eame to do his work, He died In Paris shortly after, He wos 42, Ulrike Meinhof Armed Anti-Imperialist Struggle West Germany: post-fascist state, consumers, culture, metropole-chauvinism, mass manipulation through media, psychologic warfare, Social Democrats. The GUERILLA is a politico�militaristic organization within illegality. It struggles aligned with internation­ alism, the lnternationale of the liberation movements waging war against imperialism in the third world and in the metropoles, These liberation movements are the avant-gardes of the world proletariat fighting in arms. Reality can only be perceived in a materialistic .....ay related to struggle-class struggle-war. Revolu­ tionary action-no matter how it is brought about­ will always be understood by the masses. Words are senseless, outrage is no weapon, it takes action. The Guerilla has no real viewpoint, no basis from which to operate. Everything is constantly in motion, so is the struggle. Struggle comes out of motion, mov· ing on and is moving on. AI! that matters is the aim. The guerilla perceives class struggle as the basic prin­ ciple of history and class struggle as reality, in -whicn proletarian politics will be realized. Man and woman in the guerilla are the new people for a new society, of which the guerilla is the "breed­ ing cell" because of its identity of power, subjectivity, constant process of learning, action (as opposed to theory) , So guerilla means collective process of learn­ ing with the aim to "collectivize" the individual, so that he wi!! keep up coHective learning. Politics and strategy are within each individual of the guerilla, (Speech of Ulrike MeinhoJ on Sepf. l.J, 1'174, In Moabit Prison, West Berlin, on fhe escape ofAndreas Baader from prison,) Armed Anti�lmperialist Struggle and the Defensive position of the Counterrevolution in its Psychologic Warfare Against the People AntHmperialist Struggle Anti.imperialist struggle, if not meant to be mere­ ly a phrase. aims at destroying the imperialist system of powers-politically. economically and in .militaristic terms; the cultural institutions through which imperialism provides homogenity of the ruling elites and the communications systems for its ideological predomination. Military destruction of imperialism means on the international level: destroy military alli­ ances of U.S. imperialism around the world; in Germany: destroy Nato and Bundeswehr; on the na· tfonal level: destroy the armed formations of the state apparatus, embodying the monopoly of violent power, of the ruling class, its power within the state; in Germany: police bundesgrenzschutz. secret service; economically means destroy the power structure of multinational companies; politically means destroy state and non-state bureaucracies, organizations and power structures­ parties. unions, media-which rule the people. Proletarian In temationalism Anti-imperialist struggle here is not and cannot be a national liberation struggle-its historic perspective is not socialism in one country. Transnational organi· z.ations of capital, world-gripping military alliances of U.S. imperialism, cooperation of police and secret services, international organizations of ruling elites within the power range of U.S. imperialism-are matched on our side, the side of the proletariat, of revolutionary class struggles, of the liberation $trug­ gles of third world peoples, of urban guerilla in the metropoles of imperialism: by proletarian internationalism. Since the Paris Commune. it has been obvious that the attempt of one people in an imperialist state to liberate itself on a national level will call for revenge, armed powers, the mortal hatred of the bourgeoisie of all other imperialist states. "One people suppressing others cannot e manci ­ pate i tself, " Marx said. The urban guerilla, RAF (Red Army Fraction) here, Drigate Rosse in Italy, United Peoples Liberation in the U.S. receive their military significance from the fact that they can, aligned with the liberation struggles of the third world peoples. out of solidary struggle, attack imperialism from the back here, from where it exports its troops, its weapons, its training personnel. its technology, its communications systems, its cultural fascism for the suppression and �: What does your work con. slst of? c: " consists 0' these round wooden rods that you see. They conform to .Q precise definition and are strurlured In a specific way. It's a Vt�ry short wooden dowel composed 0' segments which ore assembled once they are pointed different colors. The colors succeed one onother oc­ cording to a mathematical sys· tern of permutotlons, within which I Introduce an error each time. There Is a dialectical rap' port between mathema.kal order and error. Onc:e the boton Is c:omplef. l: ed, Is your work done? C: There must firs. 01 all be the reality of work. I sell this work; I make my living from It. Therefore, with respect to the reality of art, I hav. no ext.rlor point of view. I am completely In­ side of It. I move throughout the circuit. l: You do, however, have a parilcular mode 01 operatIon. Rother than dependIng on 'he gallery cfrc:ult for exposure and safe of your work, '1011 u'tllite the very mobIlity 0' what you do-a doff, a pilgrim's doH-In order fo establish your own network. c: That's true. I can go to the Museum of Modem Art or to Cas· telli's and present my work with· VI anyone InvIting me. a If were an orthodox ,ork, soy a conV05, could It dill tunctlon In the 50me way? C: No, because there Is an Indissoluble dialectical bond be. tween the wall and the canvas. The canvas has a recto and a ver' so, It Is made for the wall and It depends on It. l: Is the staH or the baton the only form you C:On Imagine for mobile art, for nomod/c art? c: It Is nomadic, but of course It can enter the power ap' paratus without being Invited, that is to say, without being a part of It. l: Then you use the balon to pul a monkeywrench In the works. C: Yes, that's It. L: Your baton Is at once an obJect and on aef. Exactly. C; 142 A symbolIc ocr• • • • Obviously. It ,. not becouse I go to Cast.III's that I am exhibited th.,.. Nothing can revent me from being concret., y. materially Inside the place. He can throw me out, and H', in­ teresting If h. doe.. This hos happened .I.owho,., and I n other circumstance.. When tho Institution defend. Itself. It be· comes, In no uncertain term., brutal and ogsresslve. l: c: r. L: '$ 'f only fh. InsflhJflon which reads IIIce thIs? c: Th.r. are the artl.ts. l: c: The artIsts? Yeah. l: Is the Institution also the artists? c: Yeah. You '••, one 01. ways speak. of galleries and mu• •eums, but the artists, at leasf those who are caught up In It or. much more extreme than the gallerie. them.elves. l: How rio you upla/n that? Jealousy and competition. c: for the most part. l: Th. lact thaf you can short·clrcult th. traditional chan· n.Is by showing up In the best known galleries? Yes. c: l: In fact, this short-elrcult permits you fo benefll equally from al/ fh. prestige of the no,.. mal elrcull. C: Altogether, and I've noth· Ing against that. When I began my work eight years ago, every­ one told me, "Fine, you'll end up with a gallery where you can hong your baton on the wall; you'll end up cooling It lust like everyone else." It was consld· ered on opportunist's activity. Now. I've been exhibited quite a bit In Europe, thank God, and In plenty of Important places. Mu­ seums have bought my work. But regordless of all that, I continue to hong out with my stick. And this Is where It really becomes Intere,tlng. I've estobli,hed my little artistic career like anyone else, but parallel to thot, I can' tinua my work, I makathe scene, completely alone, outside of ev­ erything, although the system can open certain doors for me. exploitation of third world peoples. This is the strategic destiny of the urban guerilla: in the backlands of imperialism, to bring forth the guerilla, the armed anti·imperialist struggle, the people's war, during a long process-because world revolution is surely not a matter of a few days, weeks, months, not a matter of just a few people's uprisings, no shorHerm process not taking over the state apparatus-as revisionis; parties and groups imagine or rather claim, since they really don't imagine anything. About the Term "National State " In the metropoles the term "national state" is a fiction, no longer having any basis within the reality of the ruling classes, its politics and power structure, which have no equivalent even in language border­ lines, since millions of labor emigrants can be found in the rich states of West Europe. Rather through inter­ nationalization of capital, through the news media, through reciprocal dependencies of economic develop. ment, through enlargement of the EUropean com· munity, through crisis, an internationalism of the proletariat in Europe eminates even on the subjective level-so that union apparatuses have been working for years already at its suppression, control, institutionalization. The fiction of a national state, which the revision­ ist groups with their form of organizing cling to, is matched by their legalistic fetishism, their pacifism, their mass opportunism. We hold against them no! the fact that members of these groups come from the petit bourgeoisie, but rather that in their politics and organ­ izational structure they reproduce the ideology of the petit bourgeoisie to which internationalism of the proletariat has always been foreign, and which has­ and this cannot be different because of its class posi­ tion and its conditions of reproduction-always organized itself comp!ementarily to the national bour­ geoisie, to the ruling class in the state. Arguing that the masses are not yet ready reminds the U . S . , RAF and captured revolutionaries in isolation, in special prison sections, in artificial brain­ wash collectives, in prison and in illegality, only of the arguments of the colonial pigs in Africa and Asia for over 70 years: black people, illiterates, slaves, the colonized, tortured, suppressed, starving, the peoples suffering under colonialism, imperialism were not yet ready to take their bureaucracy, industrialization, their school system, their future as human beings inw their own hands. This is the argument of folks who are worried about their own positions of power, aiming at ruling a people, not at emancipation and liberation struggle. 143 ID� US,? Dmetblng eem , cmcA6�pi;�' CRIME-STOP IN OPERATIDN CALL P05-1313 l: What you do Is sneaky be· couse If Is of once o/toge'her shrewd and yet comp'etely naIve. e: Yes, It Is rother twisted. II And yef It's very dlNtct. You do something. you produce somethIng visible. Only you use It dlHerfmtly. You're a sorl 01 squatter In the arl world. c: rm a squatter in the art world. and what's more, on. who would have his little studio downtown like anyone .ls•• / l: Hove ou consIdered moll" Ing Into an living In a gallery, being there every clay with your work? It you squCJttecl long enoughJ you might provoke some real trouble. whereas II you only pou through. ',' . C: The Urban Guerilla Our action of May 14, 1970 (freeing Andreas Baader from prison). is and will remain the exemplary action of the urban guerilla. It docs/did combine all elements of the strategy oJ armed anti-imperialist struggle: it was the liberation of a prisoner from the grip of the state apparatus. It was a guerilla action, the action of a group, which turned into a military­ political cell because of the dedsion to undertake the action. It was the liberation of a revolutionary, a cadre, who was essential for the set up of the urban guerilla-not just as every reVOlutionary is essential within the revolution, but because even at that time he incorporated all that was needed to make the guerilla, military-political offensive against the imperialist state possible: decisiveness, the will to act, the ability to define oneself only and exclusively through the aims, along with the keeping of the collective process o f learning o f the group going, practising leadership from the very beginning as collective leadership, passing on to the collective the processes of the learning of every individual. The action was exemplary because anti-imperialist struggle deals with liberation of prisoners, as such, from the prison, which the system has always signified for all exploited and suppressed groups of the people and without historic perspective other than death, terror, fascism and barbarianism; from the imprison­ ment of total alienation and self-alienation, from pOlitical and existential martial law, in which the people are forced to live within the grip of imperialism, consumer culture, media, the controlling apparatuses of the ruling class, dependent on the market and the state apparatus, It's one of the possibilities thot I hove not yet mode use of, but 1 don't see why I shouldn't do It, I'll walt for the rlgh.t occasion, a reolly Important exhibition, then I'll move In for 0 month. L: Hove you ever gone to the Museum 01 Modern Arl fo exhibIt? Ves, but at MOMA I hove c: to have a pocket·sb:ed piece, be­ cause they won', let me In with this big piece, l: Do you hove poeket-sJ:r.ed pieces? C: Once, I made it known that I wos going to exhibit in the Menn Galle')' In Parll, which Is an extremely well·o" place, Whot's more, I had had cartans of invitations sent from Yugo· slavla. Vugoslavla's the home of real bohemian bastards, these folks from the East, ond they dared to .show thel, baton at Monn's, amidst the good French bourge-olsle' When I arrived on the night of the private viewing, some woman threw heneif on me and confiscated the baton. I was ready for it and I had a smaller one In my pocket. So I sold, "O.K.. may I go In now?" I entered, took out my little pocket-piece ond placed It on the nice corpet, on the 'loor. Every­ one gathered around! L: Do you hove greof biS pieces os well? I left a huge work, 0 really big piece, in a group show where I obviously hod not been Invited. C: 144 It got dlU.rent reactions. One time. the organizer took it all in stride and asked me to leove my work with him. Another time, I found my work in a closet. That was fine with me-I 'e. no rea­ Ion why I shouldn't exhibit my work In Q closet. I was happy, and the were lust as happy to hove ri themselves of this an­ noying asshole. Great. But walt! I sent out Q flyerfelling everyone that one of Codere's works was exhibited .ln the closet at the Place Vendome. And plenty of people come to rummage through the closet, They all went nutsl who"s more, the New York art <:rltlcs showed up. In lad, the thing was confiscated from me, ond I never sow it again. d l: Have you ever hoel any contact with polltlcol orgcmlzo­ tlons? C: No, none. I've been oe· cus.d of being a Marxist. I com­ pletely deny thot charge, It's true, I've never written anything thot wauld tie me to Morx. At most, and lust in passing, I once quoted Ploto. Thol's rother Incrim/na"nS' (Ioughlng): I'll hove to Ct send you the text. l: l: In '" sense, If you carried out an explIcit attaek on Inst/,u­ flans, you would automol/cally be assocloted with a cerialn ele· ment that challenges 'he artistic system. Exactly. C: l: What must be 0 bit per­ plexing fa peop'e 's that you out· line what could be a systematic challenge, and then you leave oH without gtvlng It a direction. Don" you think thol's rather absurd? C: Yes, It's absurd enough. Precisely, there is no systematic challenge in It. I think that's an Interesting point. Does It seem to you a pos/· tlve point? C: Pasltive, negative, I don't knaw. L: L: Your wark Is marginal, and yet at the center. Well put. C: l: What might limit your work, ultimately, Is that however The guerilla, not only here-this was not different in Brazil, in Uruguay, in Cuba and with Che in Bolivia -always emanates from nothing; the first phase of its set-up is the most difficult; insofar as coming from the bourgeois class, prostituted of imperialism, and the proletarian class which the latter colonized offers nothing that could be useful in this struggle. There is a group of comrades, having decided to take up action, to leave the level of lethargy, verbal radicalism, of strategic discussions, which become more and more nonsubstantiai, to fight. But everything is still miss­ ing-not just all means; it only becomes evident at this point what kind of a person olle is. The metropole individual is discovered, coming from the process of decay, the mortal, false, alienated surroundings"of living in the system-factory, office desk, school, uni­ versity, revisionist groups, apprenticeship and short­ term jobs. The consequences of the separation between professional and private life show up, those of division o'f labor among intellectual and physical, of being rendered incompetent within hierarchicaHy organized processes of labor, of the psychic deformation caused by the consumer society, of the metropoJe society having moved into decay and stagnation. B ut that is us, that is where we come from: bred by the processes of elimination and destruction in the metropoie society, by the war of all against all, the competition between each and everybody else, the sys­ tem ruled by fear and pressure for productivity, the �ame of one at the expense of somebody else, the ,eparation of the people into men and women, young Elnd old, healthy and sick, foreigf!ers and natives and the fight fOr reputation. And that is where we come from: frotP the isolation of the suburban home, the desolate concrete public housing. the cell-prisons, asylums and special prison sections. From brain-wash through the media. consumerism. physical punish­ ment, the ideology of non-violence; from depression, sickness. declassification. insult and humiliation of the individual. of all exploited people under imperialism. Until We perceive the misery of each of us as consti­ tuting the necessity of liberation from imperialism. the necessity of anti-imperialist struggle and understand there is nothing to lose by destroying this system. but everything to win in the armed struggle: the collective liberation, life. humanity, identity; that the concern of the people, of the masses. the assembly-line workers, the bums, the prisoners, the apprentices, the poorest masses here and of the liberation movements in the third world is our concern. Our concern: armed, anti­ imperialist struggle, the concern of the masses and vice versa-even if this can and will prove to be real only during a long-term development of the military­ political offensive of the guerilla, the unleashing of the people's war. This is the difference between truly revolutionary and only presumably revolutionary, although in reality, opportunistic politics: our concept is based on the objective situation, the objective conditions, on the real situation of the proletariat. the masses in the metropoles-which includes that the people, no matter of what material statuli, are within the grip and under the control of the system from all sides, the oppor­ tunistic viewpoint is based on the alienated conscious­ ness of the proletariat-we rely on the fact of alienation, which constitutes the necessity for liberation. "There is no reason, " Lenin wrote in 1916 in opposition to the renegade pig Kautsky, "to assu me seriously, that the majority of proletarians coufd be united in organizations. Secondly-this being the main point-the question is not so much about the number oj members ofan organiZation but the actual, objec­ tive significance of the politics,' does it represent the' polities o/ the masses, does it serve the masses, i.e. the liberation of the masses from capitalism, or does it represent the interests of the minority, the accord with capitalism ? We cannot and nobody can figure out exactly which section of the proletariat follows and will follo w the social chauvinists and opportunists. Only the struggle will prove that, the sociali<;t revo­ lution will finally decide that, but it is our obligation, If we want to remain socialists. to go deeper to the lowest masses, to the rear masses: this constitutes the full significance oj the struggle against opportunism and the entire contents of this struggle. " bIzarre your InsertIon Into Drlls­ tIc structures, what you do re­ maIns elSenllally symbolic. Ws a work that deals wHh the very meanIng of art, the mOftne, In which art Is presented and repre­ ,ented. You don't question artlt­ ric authorIty Hself, you symboll­ caffy show what It Involves. Now what Is symbolic Is Immedlcrfe.ty recovered. SInce such an ad be­ longs In on Insf/Mlona' conf....t. There's the prob'em. e: Perhaps that's why I need to work wHh someone like David Ebony, who 1$ outside of the cir­ cuit. It allows me to broaden my foundation. How s07 The situation with David Ebony Is very Intere,tlng. Here i. someone who call, himself a gal. lery when there Is non�. Ho pays no talCes, he has no .ocial or cor­ porote elClstence, nothing. l: � There', (II ce r#oln derisive side to whot you do that calls to mind, besides Kafko, the punk rock set and what they're Into. C: The British punks, yes. I like them. Thoy kiss off cmd drink their beer. They don't give a damn. They live on the outside. l: L: With no more thought for authority. . . C: Not even the anarchy of authority, not even dropping bombs. It', reoUy naive. 146 L: CI It'. ,really disgusting_ "h.,. are f'Otall, Indifferent. L: WhIch Is nof exadly your own pft/tude. Th.,.e's no vIolence In what you do. no provocation. Your provocation adheres elosely th. mo"ement of the system. In lad. you',.. eve" mo,.. system­ atle fhan th. 'yste"" which Is why you 91"e th. Impreu/on fhat you or. I_u so. You do too much. ancl of ,h. same time not &"ollgh. C; V.s, but weillI It', " maf· I., of p"nonol evolution. The petty events thot I've relaled to you happened lome years ogo. I plclIl to do th.$. mar. violent acts less and less. " m much more 'nter.slod In on odlvitf' thot's mar. diffuse, mar. "eutrol, more drab, whereos 't's the spectacular sid. of the punks that Inter.sts me. l: And If you remove th. spedQd. sIde, whot's left? C: Perhaps a permonent ac­ tivity. At leost, I would hope so. l: If you were fa consld.r positively your r.latlon fo a cer· fain conception of orl, do you think that you Introduce a dis­ find notran or aHifude toward this system 'n which one nolls a work of arl to th. wall? C: I think thot this is some· thing thot has never been done in this way throughout the his· tory of painting, this sort of dia­ lectlcol relationship between a work and the world, betw_n a work onr! Its space. It Is a dlff.,· ent mechanism, and for that rea· son It permits a diff.rent activity. l: Perhaps you are oHerlng cerlain woys of living arl, as op_ posed to lIving oH arl. A new arl of /lvlng. Obviously, your boton could be attached to a woll lor· ever, but If Is only 'ru'y meonlng. ful as a parl of your activity. Ther. Is an undeniable aspect 01 perlormance-or 15 'f perlorma. tlve?-In what you do. C: Yes, that's Iru•. But any­ one who owns one of my batons can hang oul with It. 1 have noth­ ing at all against that. And the,e are p&Ople who do III There's a California artist who's been do· ing It for six yeors. W. met in Germony in 1972, and It changed his life. The Guerilla is the Group The function of leadership in the guerilla, the function of Andreas in the RAF is: orientation�not just to distinguish in every situation the main points from the minor ones but also in every situation to stick to the entire political context in all aspects, never to lose sight, among details, technical and logistic, single problems, of the aim, the revolution, on the level of policies of aIHances. never to forget the class question, on the tactical level, the strategic questions; this means: never to succumb to opportunism. It is "the art of combining dialectically moral rigidity with smoothness of action, the art of applying the law of development to the leadership of revolution, which (urns progressive changes into qualitative steps, " Duan said. It is also an art "not to withdraw with fright from the immenseness of one's own purposes," but to pursue them rigidly and unwaveringly; the de­ cisiveness to learn from mistakes. to learn first and foremost. Every revolutionary organization, every guerilla organization knows thaL The principle of practice demands the development of such abilities­ every organization, which bases its concept upon dia­ lectic materialism. which has the aim of the victory in the people's struggle rather than the set�up of a party bureaucracy, partnership within power of imperialism. We do not talk about democratic centralism, since urban guerillas, in the metropole federal republic can� not have a centralistic apparatus. It is not a party but a political�militaristic organization, developing its func� Hons of leadership collectively from every single unit, group-with the tendency to dissolve them within the groups, within collective learning. The aim is always the independent, tactical orientation of the fighter, the guerilla, the cadre. The collectivization is a political process, noticeable everywhere, in interaction and communication, in learning from one another in all work and training. Authoritarian structures of leader­ ship lack materia! basis in the guerilla, also because the true, i,e, voluntary development of the productive energy of every individual contributes to the effective� ness of the revolutionary guerilla: to intervene in a revolutionary way with weak energies, to unleash the people's war. 148 L: Isn" So h. displays a work that liY." hI,? c: Exodly. It's rough. It's extremely dIfficult. l: This orilst, then, Is not only alienated hom edstlng structures, but olso from hI' own arl, which Is nof hJs ownl ,H. Is equally alienated c: from hil own personality. He does away with himself. It's rath­ er on extravagant phenomenon. l; This 1$ why' spoke 01 a pll. grim's doH. It InspIre, one to hang out, to trovel. to roam. to wander about thft margins. c: Thl, artist Is not olone. Ther. are others. l: Have they met with the 50me sori of readlons that you yourself hove encounter.d? C: More so yet, with ltven more hostility. People say to them, "Oh, so you're one of Co­ d.r.'s fans l A little Codere''' 't', much worse for them. I know one. f.llow who suff.red a nerv_ ous breakdawn. I told him, "If you want to buy 1t, thot's your business. But I don't advise )'Qu to c:arry it. Watc:h out, It's don· gerous." Just the same, he cor· rled h around for a whole year. He loves art. He loves to hong out In thert world, and he really believed In h. He ended up hav· Ing a fit. As for the California art­ ist, he's really off the wall ! Don't some people thInk you',.. really off the wall? C: They can, yes, but IIlti· mately they soy • • . l: L: • , • that alter all, you're not really dangeroll", After a while, however blJ:arre or devl· ant, you ore rec:ognlzed as an artist who '5 Involved In a work that has'lts worth. C: It's an Inesc:apable process. L: Hove you ever been In touc:h with ari/sllc: movemenb opposed to, the gallery "ystem? No. C: L: It doesn't Infere,,' you? No, not in the least, C: What's more, It doesn't exbt. We're talking about artists who create works that must be dis­ ployed. So they say, "O.K" we11 set up a cooperative gallery- Psychological Warfare The principle of psychological warfare, in order to instigate the masses against the guerilla, to isolate the guerilla from the people, is to mystify the material, real aims of revolution, which matter�liberation from the rule o f imperialism, from occupied territories, from colonialism and neo-colonialism, from dictator­ ship of the bourgeoisie, from military dictatorship, exploitation, fascism and imperialism and to distort through personification psycho!ogization, to make the perceivable nonperceivable, the rational seemingly ir­ rational, the humanity of revolutionaries seem inhu­ man. The technique is: instigation, lies, dirt, racism, manipulation. mobilization of the hidden fears of the people, of the reflexes of existential fears and super­ stition in regard to uncomprehended authorities, be­ cause of non-perceivable power structures, all of which have been burnt into the flesh through decades and centuries of colonialism and exploitative control. In the attempt of the pigs to destroy through psy­ chological warfare, through personification and psy­ chologization the thing: revolutionary politics, armed anti· imperialist struggle in the metro pole federal republic and their implications on the consciousness of the peopie, they make us seem to be what they are, the structure of the RAF as that one by which they rule-the way their power apparatuses are set-up and function: being Ku-Klux-Klan, Mafia, CIA and the way the character masks of imperialism and their puppets force through their interests: by blackmail, bribery, competition, protectionism, brutality and the path across dead bodies. In their psychological warfare against us, the pigs count on the merging - of pressure for productivity and the fright, which the system burnt into the flesh of ever one, who is forced to sell his working energy just to be able to exist. They count on the instigated syn­ dromes: anti-communism, anti-semitism, sexual re­ pression, religion, authoritarian school systems, rac­ ism, brain-washing through consumer culture and imperialist medias, reeducation and " wirtschafts­ wunder", having been directed against the people for y decades, centuries. The shocking thing about the gueri!la in its first phase was the shocking thing about our first action, by having people act without leUing themselves be de­ termined by the pressure of the system, without seeing themselves with the eyes of the media, without fear. Folks acting based on true experience, their own and that of the people. For the guerilla relies on those facts, which the people suffer from every day; exploi­ tation, media terror, insecurity of living conditions in spite of most refined technology and greatest wealth in this country-psychic i!lnes.�es, suicides, child molest­ ing, distress of schools, housing misery. The shocking 149 thing about our action for the imperialist state was that the RAF has been perceived in the consciousness of the people to be what it is: practice, the thing, which results logically and dialectically from the existing con· ditions-action, which as expression of the real con· ditions, as expression of the only realistic possibility to change them, overthrow them, renders back dignity to the people, and meaning to the struggles, revolutions, uprisings, defeats and revolts of the past-once again enables the people to have a consciousness of its history. Because all history is history of class struggle, because people, having lost sense of the dimensions of revolutionary class struggle, are forced to live in a state of no history, deprived of its'self·consciousness, i.e. its dignity. In reference to the guerilla, everybody can define for himself, where he stands-is able after all to see, where he is standing, his position in the class society, within imperialism, define it for himself. For many think they are standing on the side of the peole-but as soon as the people start to fight, they run off. denounce. step on the brakes, move to the side of the police. This is the problem which Marx cited endless times, that a person is not what he claims but what his real functions, his role in the class society, defines him as, this is what he, unless acting consciously against \ .,. ;'1 � I "' I�" " I ' there's no other solutlon."- A co. operotlve gollery? Thanks, I can do without it. I do my work all by myself. It's the sam. old en· dos.d space. W. not John or Mary Doe who get the bucks. but hm ortlsts. What the h.1I should I cor. about their boxes ond their naked 901l.rl.sl But you're no 'ess glued fa the artlsHc world than they are, because u'tlmate'y, what you do depends on a very restricted dr· cult. Doesn', th. fact that you In· habit the artistic ghetlos confirm Its ulstenee? Wouldn', It be prelerob'e to shuHle thlll corns_ and not only Inside th. Insfltv. tlon; to challenge the dlsfrlbu· tlon among the elite, which Is to say the art scene, and fhe war/d of large? C: I'm In the street olt day long. But not lu.t In the str_t. L: l: In the stree' people see you as someone who's a bit ex_ frovaganf. but New York 's full of .cunlrlcs. How are peop/III to understand that whot fhev" e , ." , I 3J\.£\I )1 =I� -I�I:IN� le)1 :Ne jl_l\NI ) (;()T lJNI {. lJT 150 n.'"9 Is em orll,,'t: dateme,t,? c: They don't have to under­ dend that. I oddress the artistic .talement .01ely and uniquely to art', power .trueture. In the .treet, It'. an altogether diU.r­ ent thing. Then Is If only artlsffc L: "ruehlr•• which conl.r ortlsfle charoeterlstlcs on wha' you do? C: Yes. l: So you half. a n••d for thIs authority or power. elfen fa come down on It. C: I could give another defl· nltion for "art", I can say. a priori: "Art Is this baton which I carry. Th.r.fore, In the subway. in the galleries ond museums, In the str••t. wherever, thl. I. what art is all about. And I show It to people. Some think It', very beautiful, others remain com­ pletely Indlff.rent. And so It g08S. If, on the contrary. I give a spedalixed definition for "ort", a. certain Institutions do, then I must ,how something within the framework of the Institution. l: You ho"e been clau/f/ed with the r;onr;eptual ortlsfs, Does thb r;o"espond fa what you feel? I define myself precisely C: , a, ho.,Jn9 nothing to do with the conceptual mo\f&ment, l: Would you ha.,. b••n obI. to do your thing without concep' tua/ort? c: Wen, the,e Is a connec­ tion, bUI nolhlng more. Concep­ tual art Is an hl" orlc:al classlfico' tlon. L: Th. Itinerary you r;ho... to follow on W•., Broadway on April 8, 1978, 'nclud.d not only 9allerles . • . C: We wonted to indude boutiques, " ore" prestigioul gollerlel, schmaltzy galleries. what•.,.,. In this way, every­ thing was reduced to the lome level-which is business. L: 'n se"'n9 up an equ/va. lence between one gallery and another, you're r.cogn/dng. ,ust th. some, that th.re are tltH.r. enees between them, and you explolf the v.ry foct that these dlHerenus exl.,. C: David Ebony and I have disr;usted this qu.stlon In depth, At first we figured we should re' the system, Le. taking up arms and fighting, is being lived a<; by the system, has been practically instru­ mentalized to be for the aims of the system. The pigs in their psychological warfare try to turn upside down those facts which have been rightside up in the guerilla action-being that the people does not depend on the state but the state on the people, that the people does not depend on stock corporations, mUltinationals, their plants, but the capitalist pigs on the people, that police was created not to protect the people from criminals but rather to protect the exploi­ tative system of imperialism from the people, the people do not depend on the justice system but the justice system on the people, we do not depend on the presence of American troops and institutions here but U.S. imperialism on us. Through personif(cation and psychologization they project upon us what they are, the cliches of capitalist anthropology, the reality of its character masks, its judges, state, prosecutors, its prison pigs, the fascists: the pig enjoYing its alienation, living on torturing others, suppressing, using them, the existence of which is based upon career, upward mobility, stepping upon, living at the expense of others, exploitation, hunger, misery,. misery o f some billion people in the third world as well as here. The ruling class hates us because in spite of a hundred years of repression, fascism, anti�commu­ nism, imperialist wars, the murder of nations, the revolution is lifting up its head again. By psychological warfare the bourgeoisie, the pig state has dumped upon us, and especially Andreas-he is the incarnation of the mob, the street-fighter enemy-all they hate and fear about the people; they recognized in us what is threatening them and will overthrow them: the de­ cisiveness towards revolution, revolutionary force, political-military action-their own helplessness, the limitations of their means, once the people take to arms and start fighting. Not upon us but upon itself does the system re­ flect in its slander against us, as all slander against guerilla teaches about those who produce it, about their pig belly, their aims, ambitions and fears. Even the "self-appointed avant-garde" for example does not make sense. To be avant-garde is a function which you cannot appoint yourself to nor claim. It is a function, which the people give to the guerilla out of their own consciousness, within the process of awakening, out 0 f rediscovery of their own role in history, by discoveririg themselves within guerilla action, recognizing the ln�ltself necessity of destroying the system as a For-Itself necessity through guerilla action that has already transformed it into a For-Itself necessity. The notion "self-appointed avant-garde" displays a kind of prestigious thinking, which belongs to the ruling class, which opts for domination-it has nothing to do with the function of possessioniessness ler 10 the different galleries and the various .tores by name. Then W.1. decided not to give our own action toa polemic and .,-rsonal a dimenslan. l: Personal? Aren', we talk­ '"g about structures a"d not people? C: The name af a gallery Is first of all the name of a person. We ended up reducing our Itlner· ary to a successian of street addresses. Then, on the one fKmd, you equate what Is arttsllc with what Is not, and on the .ofher h(lnd, you level the Infern(ll hler· (lrch/cal dlHerences wllhfn the art world. C: Right. But there's another thing. When I'm in New York, I walk around with my work under my arm every d(lY, But through our Itinerary, David Ebony and I lust wanted to highlight what for us is a slmle dally activity. There's nothing e,cceptionol about It, only at certain moments• . . . l: It becomes oHIc/al. l: Not exactly. It becomes C: conscious. L: C: It crysfalllns. Yes. L: You sent on InvItatIon, a gilded Invltallo" to boof, an· nounclng your exhIbitIon In plac. es you are not connected with, like a gallery whIch doesn" edsf. That's a cool parody of the Ins"tullon. C: Strictly speaking, It's not mtKJnt to be humorous. L: Old anyone come specifIcally fo See your work? c: Three, or perhaps five did, I think. But what do I care obout the way people reacted? It wa!; enough to do It-with r<l(Ictions, without reactions, any which way. One could say that you at­ tempt something whfch Is c/ose to what WIll/am Burroughs de­ scribes. The virus he Invokes Is a parasite whIch Invades a living organism and turns Its whole substance, It energy and Its de­ sIres toward another end. Now l: 152 you, yClu do lust th. oppodt•• You Introduc. a count.r-vlrus Into on unhealthy structure, whlth 1$ tit. structure of com· m.rc., or hl.rorthy, or outhor­ Ity. YClu f""d oH It, you loos.n Its rip, simply .stabl"hlng a poral. ., rJrt:tllf. C: What you say Is lnt.r.st· Ing. Neither Ebony nor I had it In our heads to touch on the exist. 'n9 structures at Cast.III's. w. produced our parallel circuit, and it's true that It developed insid. of their thing, but ot th. some time, it remain.d totally inde­ pendent of It. It fed off Its own sourc.s, which are not neces­ sarlly thos. of the existing golled.s, " II You dlverl th. Iydem of the gall.rles' worth for your own profit, but of the lame time, you p.rvert lt, And ' m.an fhls Ilt.r­ ally: you r.c09nl%. th. eJf1d.nc. of th. law, but thIs Is In ord.r to b.Her .dab/bh an arllflclal and rival agre.menl, and to r.-orient the flux of values In a literal dl· rection- "I have exhibited at Sol· omon'I"-whlch becomes, byth. same folc.n, a parody, You reo discover, through trlekery, the original dlm.nslon of art, which Is that of play. The way a child plays, a perverse child's game: Richard Lindner's mondrous little boy pluggIng his little machine Into the big one. It only prelends to be a trilling gam.. On. couldn" fud off the Institutional valu.u any more Innocently, C; , I'd say less. It Is a means of f.eding off the Institution, but I don't dolm to reveal anything. I only dolm to Ihow lomething which would not b. shown oth.r­ wis•. of the proletariat, with emancipation, with dialectic materialism, with anti-imperialist struggle. The Dialectics oj Revolution and Counterrevolution These are the dialectics of the strategy of anti� imperialist struggle: that through the defensiveness, 153 the reactions of the system, the escalation of counter� revolution. the transformation of the political martial law into the military martial law, the enemy betrays himself, becomes visible-and thus by his own terror makes the masses rise against him. lets contradictions escalate and thus forces the revolutionary struggle. Marighela: «The basic principle of revolutionary strategy under the conditions of a permanent polWcal crisis in city as well as countryside is to undertake such a range of revolutionary actions that the enemy feels compelled to change the political situation oj the state into a military one. Then dissatisfaction will S,f!ize all layers and the military will be the only one responsible for all misconduct. " And A. p, Puyan. a Persian com­ rade: "Through the pressure of the worsening. coun­ terrevolutionary force against the resistance fighters. all other controlled groups and classes will Inevitably become even more suppressed. Thus the ruling class intensifies the contradictions between itself and the suppressed classes and by creating such an atmos­ phere. which will come byforce ofthings. ifpushes the political consciousness of the masses way ahead. .. And Marx: «Revolutionary progress determines its direction when it rouses a powerful. self-centered. counterrevolution by engendering an adversary that can only cause the insurgent party to evolve. in its battle against the counterrevolutionaries. into a . veritable revolutionary party. . When the pigs in 1972 with a personnel of 150,000 created total mobilization in their search against the RAF, people's search via TV, intervention of the chan­ cellor. centralization of all police forces with the federal bureau-this meant that at this point all mate­ rial and personnel forces of this state were in motion because of a small number of revolutionaries: it be­ came evident on a material level that the force monopoly of the state is limited, its powers can be exhausted. that imperialism is tactically speaking a man-eating monster, but strategically a paper tiger. It became evident on a material level that it is up to us whether suppression continues and it is up to us as well whether it will be smashed. Translated by Sigrid Huth Gilles Deleuze Politics As individuals and groups, we afC made up of lines, lines o f very different sorts. The first kind of line (or rather, lines, since there are many lines of this kind) that forms us is segmentary, but rigidly segmented: family-profession; work-vacation; family-then school-then army-then factory-then retire­ ment. After each change from one segment to another, we arc told, "You arc no longer a child"; then at school. "Now yOll arc no longer at home"; then in the army, "this is not a school here . . . " In short, all kinds of well defined segments, corning from everywhere, which literally and figuratively carve us up, bundles o f segmented lines. There are also segmented lines that are much more supple, somehow molecular. It's not that they are more intimate or personal, for they run through societies and groups as well as through individuals. They trace out small modifications, cause detours, sketch depressions or outbursts of enthusiasm; yet, they are nonetheless preCise, for they direct many irreversible processes. Rather than segmented molar lines, these are molecular flows with thresholds or quanta. A threshold is crossed but this doesn 't necessarily coincide with a more visible segment of lines. Many things occur along this second type of line, states of flux, micro-states of flux, lacking the rhythm of our 'history'. That is why family problems, readjustments, and recollections appear so painful, while in fact, our most important changes are taking place elsewhere�another point of view, another time, another individuation. A profession is a rigid segment, but what goes on behind it! What connections, attractions and rejections inconsistent with the segments, what secret follies, nevertheless linked to public power: a professor, for example, or a judge, lawyer, accountant or cleaning woman? At the same time, there is also a third kind of line, an even stranger one, as if something were carrying us away through our segments but also across our thresholds, towards an unknown destination, not forseeable, not preexisting. This line is simple, abstract, and yet it is the most complicated, the most tortuous of them all: it is the line of gravity and celerity, of remigration with the steepest gradient. This line seems to spring up afterwards, detaching itself from the other two, jf indeed it can accomplish this separation. For perhaps there are people who do not have this line, who have only the'other two, or those who have only one. From another perspective, however, this line has been present from the beginning, although it is the opposite of destiny; it would not need to detach itself from the other two; rather it would be the principal line, with the others deriving from i1, In any case, these three lines are immanent, interwoven one into the other. We have as many entangled lines in om lives as in the palm of a hand. But we are complicated in different ways than is a hand. The pursuits that we call by various names (schizo-analysis, micropolitics, pragmatics, diagramatism, rhizomatics, cartography) have no other goa! than the study of these lines in groups or individuals. Fitzgerald explains in his admirable short piece The Crack-up how life always proceeds at several rhythms, several speeds. Since Fitzgerald is a living drama, defining life as a process of demolition, his text is black, though no less exemplary, inspiring love with each sentence. He never displays as much genius as when he speaks of his loss of genius. Thus, he says about himself, there are first of all the large segments: rich-poor, young-old, success-failure, health-illness, love-indifference, creativity-sterility, in connection with social events (economic crisis, the stock market crash, the advances of cinema replacing the novel, the development of fascism, all kinds of necessarily heterogenious events, to which these segments respond and precipitate). Fitzgerald refers to these events as breakages, each segment marking or being able to mark such a break. This kind of segmented line concerns us on a particular date in a particular place. Whether it goes up or down doesn't really matter (a successful life built upon this model is no better simply because of the model). The American Dream is just as much starting out as a street­ sweeper and becoming a millionaire as the reverse; it involves the same segments. Fitzgerald also says' that there are lines of cracking-up that don't correspond with the lines of large segmentary breaks. In this case we'd say that a plate has cracked, Most often, when things are going well, when everything's going better on the other line, the crack shows up stealthily, imperceptibly on this new line, causing a threshold of lesser resistance, or perhaps an increase of a required threshold, We can no longer put up with things as we used to, even 157 as we did yesterday; the distribution of desire within us has been changed, our conceptions of fast and slow have been modified, and a new kind of anguish, but also a new kind of serenity, come to us. The fluxes subside: our health improves, our wealth stabilizes. our talent manifests itself; that's when the little crack develops, the fissure that will oblique the line. Or perhaps the reverse: you make an effort to , improve things when suddenly everything cracks apart on the other line. What an immense relief! Being no longer able to put up with something could be a way of making progress, but it could also be the development of paranoia, a fear that besets the aged, or it could be a perfectly correct evaluation, for rcal or political reasons. We don't change or grow older in the same way, from one line to another. The supple line is therefore no more personal or intimate than the hard line. The microcracks are also collective in the same way that macrobreaks are personal. Fitzgerald goes on to speak of yet another line, a third line which he caUs rupture. It would appear that nothing has changed, and yet everything has changed. Assuredly, neither large segments, changes nor voyages affect this line, but neither do hidden mutations or mobile and floating thresholds, even though they come close. Instead, we would say that an 'absolute' threshold has been reached. There's no longer any secret. We've become just like everyone else, or more precisely, we have made a becoming of 'everyone'. We have become imper¥ ceptible, clandestine. We have embarked upon a very curious, stationar-y journey. The lines, the movements of remigration arc what appear first in a society in a way. Far from being a remigration outside of the social realm, far from being utopian or even ideological, these lines actualJy constitute the social realm, tracing its inclinations and its borders, its entire state of flux. We would qualify someone as a marxist if he were to say that a society contradicts itself, that it can be defined by its contradictions, e�pecialiy class contradictions. We would say instead that everything circulates in a society, that a society defines itself by its lines of remigration, affecting masses of every sort (for once again, 'mass' is a molecular notion). A society, or any collective venture defines itself first by its points or flux of deterritorialization. History's greatest geo� graphical adventures are lines of remigration-the long marches ' by foot, horse or boat: the Hebrews in the desert, Genseric Ie Vandale crossing the Mediterranean, the nomads across the steppes, the Great March of the Chinese-it is always along a line of remigration that we create, certainly not because we imagine or dream, but on the contrary, because we are tracing out the Real, and it is here that we construct a plan of consistence. RUn, but while running, pick tip a weapon. This primacy of the lines of remigration should be understood neither in a chronological sense. nor in the sense of an eternal generality. Rather, its significance points to the fact and the right of inopportunity: a time without pulse, a hecceity, like a breeze that picks up at midnight, or at noon. For these reterritorilizations occur simultaneously: monetary reterritorializations pass along new circuits; rural reterritorializations implement new modes of exploitation; urban reterritorializations pass according to new functions, etc. III this way reterritorializations accumulate and give birth to a class deriving particular benefits from it, capable of becoming homogeneous and recoding aU the segments. At most, it would be neces.�ary to distinguish between all mass movements with their respective coefficients and speeds, and class stabilizations with their segments distributed throughout the totality of the reterritoriaHzation. The same thing acts as mass and as class but upon two different, intertwined lines with disparate contours. Now we can better understand why I said that there are at least three different lines, although sometimes only two, and even sometimes only one, all very entangled. Some­ times there are actually three lines, because the lines of remigration or of rupture combine all the movements of deterritorialization, precipitate towards the quantum level, tear off accelerated particles that cross into each other's territory and transport them to a plane of consistency or a mutant machine. And then we have a second, molecular line, where deterritorializations are only-relative, compensated by reterritorializations that impose multiple loops and detours, equilibriums and stabilizations upon them. Finally there is the f \ 1\ molar line, composed of welt defined segments, where reterritorializations accumulate to form an organizational plane and pass into a reeoding machine. Three lines: the nomad line, the migrant line and the sedentary line (the migrant isn't anything like the nomad). Or we could have only two lines, because the molecular one would merely appear in oscillation between two extremes, sometimes overwhelmed by the conjugal flux of deterritorialization, sometimes contributing to the accumulation of reterritorializations. The migrant allies himself sometimes with the nomad and at other times with the mercenary or sedentary people: the Ostrogoths and Wisigoths. Or perhaps there is only a single line, the line of first remigration, the border or edge which relativizes the second line, allowing itself to be stopped or cut into the third. But even then, it can be conveniently presented as the line resulting from the explosion of the other two. Nothing is more complicated than this line or these lines: Melville refers to it when he talks about tying together the dingys with their organized segmentarity, about Captain Ahab in his germinal and molCi;ular animal state, and the white whale during his wild escape. Let us return to the realm of signs we were talking about earlier: how the line of remigration is eliminated in despotic regimes; how during the Hebronic reign, now endowed with a negative sign, a positive but relative value was discovered and dissected into successive events . . . These are only two possible illustrations, there are so many others dealing with the essence of politics. Political activity is an active experiment because we never know in advance which' direction a line is going to take. Make the line break through, says the accountant: but that's just it, the line can break through just about anywhere. There are so many dangers; each line poses its own problems. The danger of both rigid segmentarity and the line of 'breakage' shows up everywhere. For not only do these lines concern our relationship with the State but also with every power mechanism that !eaves its trace upon us, al! the binary machines that dissect us, the abstract machines that encode us. These rigid segments regulate our way of seeing, acting, feeling-our entire realm of signs. It's very true that nationalist states oscHiate between two poles: the first, liberal, since the State is nothing more than an apparatus directing its abstract machinery and the second, totalitarian, since the State takes the abstract machinery upon itself, thus tending to become confused with it. The segments which divide us , I and which order our lives are in any case marked with a rigidity that reassures us, but which also turns us into the most fearful, the most impitiable, the most bitter of aU creatures. The danger is so widespread and so clear that we .. / are often forced to wonder why we need this segmentarity at all. Even if we had the power to do away with it, could we do so without destroying ourselves? Especially since this segmentarity defines the very conditions of our life, induding OUI human organism and even our rational capacities. The prudence which should be used to guide this line, the precautions needed to ' soften it, to suspend it, to divert it, to undermine it, all point to a long process . which isn't carried out simply against the State and its powers, but also against itself. The second line poses just as many threats. It is not sufficient to have .\ attained or traced a mOlecular line, to have been carried away on a supple line. For here again, our perceptions, actions, passions and our whole system of signs are involved. Although we may encounter on a supple Iin� the same , dangers endemic to the rigid lines, they appear in miniature, disseminated or . ) A f"T . J. . t,' .. 159 perhaps molecularized: the little Oedipi of communal living have replaced the family Oedipus; continually changing relationships of force replace power mechanisms; cracks replace segregation. But , worse still, the supple lines themselves reduce and provoke their own dangers: a threshold crossed too quickly-or an intensity become dangerous because it is no longer bearable, The proper precautions weren't taken. This is the 'black hole ' phenomenon, a supple line rushes into a black hole from which it cannot emerge. Guattar; speaks of micro�fascisms that exist in a social realm without necessarily being attached to the centralized apparatus of a particular State. We have left the banks of rigid segmentarity, but we haven't found a morc unified regime, where one individual buries himself in the black hole and becomes dangerously confident about his situation, his role and his mission. This proves morc worrisome than the certitudes of the first line: Stalins of little groups, neighborhood justice.fighters, micro-fascism in gangs. etc. . . . Therefore we are obliged to say that the true revolutionary is the schizophrenic, and that schizophrenia is actually the collapse of a molecular process into a black hole. It would be wrong to consider it enough to finally chose the line of remigration or rupture. First of ali,-this line must be traced and we have to learn how to trace it. The line of remigration carries its own danger which is perhaps the worst of all.�ot only do these. the steepest lines of remigration run the risk of being closed off, segmented and engulfed by black holes, but they additionally fun the risk of becoming lines of abolition and destruction, of themselves as well as of others. The passion of abolition . . . Even music! Why does it evoke in us such a desire to die? It's just that all the examples of Hnes of remigration that we've mentioned so far appear in the works of our most favorite writers; how then do they turn out so badly? Lines of remigraton turn out badly not because they are imaginary, but precisely because they are real and move within their reality. They turn out badly not becau$e they are short�circuited by the other two lines, but because they themselves secrete a particular danger: Kleist and his double suicide, Holderlin and his madness, Fitzgerald and his self-destruction, Virginia Woolf and her disappearance. When these lines lead to death, it is because of an interior energy, a danger bred from within and not a destination that would be their own. We should ask ourselves why, along these lines of remigration which we consider as real, does the metaphor of war so readily come to mind, even on tht" most personal and individual level? Holderlin on the battlefield; Hyperion. Kleist, who throughout his entire work repeats the idea of a war machine needed to battle against the State apparatus; but also, in his life, the idea of a war which must be carried out ultimately leads to his suicide. Fitzgerald: "I felt as though I were standing alone at twilight on a deserted shooting range". 'Critique and Clinique': life and a work of art are the same thing; when they join the line of remigration, they belong to the same war machine. A long time ago, under these same conditions. life ceased being personal and the work of art ceased being literary or textual. War is certainly not a metaphor. We all suppose that the war machine has a completely different nature and origin than the State mechanism The war machine probably had its origin in the conflict between the nomadic shepherds and the imperial sedentary peoples. This implies an arithmetic organization in an open space where men and women distribute themselves, as opposed to the geometric organization of the State which divides up an enclosed space. Even though the war machine is very similar to geometry, it is a very different geometry from that of the State, a sort of Archimedian geometry composed of 'problems' and not of 'theorems' like Euclid's. On the other hand, the power of the State doesn't depend upon a war machine, but upon the functioning of the binary machines that run through us and the abstract machines that encode us: an entire 'police force'. Interestingly enough, the war machine is penetrated by animal and women states of flux, these states of flux that arc imperceptible to the warrior. (Cf: the secret is an invention of the war machine, in opposition to the 'publicity' of the despot or the statesman). DumeziJ has often insisted upon this eccentric position of the warrior in relation to the State; Luc de HClisch shows how the war machine comes from exterior to rush towards an already developed State. ' Pierre Clastrc, in a : d"r;llitive text, explains that the function of war among primitive groups was precisely to conjure up the formation of a State apparatus.' We'd say that the State apparatus and the war machine neither belong to the same lines, nor construct themselves upon the same lines, whereas the State apparatus and even the conditions that provide for coding belong to the rigid segmented lines. ...·�h.L war machine follows the steepest lines of remigration coming from the heart of the steppes or the desert and thrusting itself upon the empire, like Ghengis Khan and the Emperor of China. The military organization is one of remigration (even the one that Moses gave to his people) not only because it consists in escaping something, or even in making the enemy run, but because everywhere it goes it traces a line of remigration or deterritorialization which ". resolves itself into a line with its own policy and strategy. Under these conditions. one of the most considerable problems facing the State is to : integrate this war machine into the institutionalized army. to make it a part of ''' , the general police (Tamerlan is perhaps the most striking example of such a _. conversion). The army is never more than a compromise. The war machine . could become mercenary, or it could become appropriated by the State in its � very attempt to conquer it. But there will always be a tension between the State " apparatus , with its demand for self-preservation, and the war machine. with '·its project to destroy the State, its subjects. and even to destroy or dissolve itself along the line of remigration. If there is no history from the point of view jof the nomads (even though everything happens through them), if they are like <" ' the noumens or the unknowables of history, it is because they are inseparable ."."".... from this project of abolition which makes nomadic empires disappear as 'OC" ","<;".;' quickly as individuals, at the same time that the war machine either destroys or , abandons itself to the service of the State. Briefly, each time the line of ';:'1 remigration is traced out by a war machine. it converts itself into a line of ; abolition, des�royjng itself as well as others. This is the particular danger of . . . : . . ,�.,thIS type of hne that entwmes but doesn't confuse Itself with the precedmg ; dangers. This occurs to such an extent that each time a line of remigration ,:':, ;:. turns into a line of death. we are not dealing with an interior pulsation, as for example, a 'death wish', but rather, with a conjunction of desire which activates an objective or extrinsically definable machine. Therefore, it is not simply metaphorical to say that each time someone .destroys others as well as himself. he has invented his own war machine along his lines of remigration: the conjugal war machine of Strindberg; the alcoholic war machine of Fitzgerald . The entire work of Kleist is built upon the following realization: ,___tlh..· e is n o longer any war machine equal in size to that o f the Amazons; the is only a dream that disintegrates and makes room for one's armies. The Prince of Hambourg: how is it possible to reinvent a new war machine? Michael Kulhaas: how can lines of remigration be traced :: we know very well that their path leads us to destruction. to double sui­ Lead my own war? Or rather, how can I evade this last trap? Differences do not occur between individuals and groups, for we see no duality between the two types of problems: there is nO subject of enunciation, but every proper name is collective, every conjunction is already collective. The differences between natural and artificial are no longer apparent as long as the two belong to the same machine and are interchangeable. The case is the , � same between spontaneity and organization, as long as the question deals with ' � � �U �I:��O;:�: :_" " < ' ;:' � ./ "� , 161 modes of organization. Nor is it any different between segmentarity and centralization, if indeed centralization is an organization form which depends upon a type of rigid segmentarity. These effective differences take place between lines even though they are all imminently intertwined into one another. That's why the question of schizoanalysis, pragmatism or micropolitics itself is never onc of interpretation but only of questioning; which lines belong to you, as an individual or group, and what are the dangers of each line? 1 . Which are your rigid segments, your binary machines and your codes? For these are not givens. We are not only carved up by the binary machines of class, sex or age, but there arc also other machines that we never finish shifting around, inventing without knowing it. And what risk would we run if we did away with them too quickly? The organism itself wouldn't die, since it too possesses binary machines all the way down to its nerves and its brain. 2. Which are your supple lines. your fluxes and your thresholds. What is the totality of your relative deterritorializations and correlative reterritorializations? And the distribution of your black holes? What are they like, where is the little beast hiding itself and where is the micro·fascism flourishing? 3. What are your lines of remigration at that point where the fluxes conjugate, where the thresholds reach a point of adjacency and rupture? Are they still alive or have they already been assumed into a machine of destruction and autodestruction that will recreate molar fascism? A conjunction of desire and enunciation could be folded into the most rigid lines, into their power mechanisms. There are other conjunctions with only these lines. But other dangers He in wait for each of us, 'from the most supple to the most vicious, of which we alone are the judge, as long as it is not too late. The question, "How can desire wish for its own repression?" doesn't really pose an actual theoretical problem, but it does present many practical problems. There is desire as soon as there is a machine or a 'Body without Organs'. But bodies without organs are sometimes like empty. hardened envelopes. because they have overthrown their organic components too quickly; 'overdoses'. There are cancerous and fascist Bodies without Organs, in black holes or in machines of abolition. How can desire thwart all of this, while continually attempting to combat these dangers with its own plan of consistence and immanence? There is no generalized recipe. There are no more global concepts. Even concepts are hecceities and events in themselves. What is interesting about concepts like ,'desire' or 'machine' or 'conjunction' is that the'y can be defined only by their variables. and by the highest possible number of variables. We are not in favor of concepts which are general and therefore as useless as hollow teeth: THE law: THE master, THE rebel. We aren't here to account for all the deaths and victims of history, nor for the martyrs of Goulag. "The revolution is impossible; but since we are thinkers, we must think the impossible, because in the final analysis, the impossible only exists in our minds ! " There was never any question o f revolution, spontaneous utopia o r State organization. When we challenge the model of State apparatus, or of party organizations which model themselves upon the conquest of this apparatlls, we do not necessarily regress to the opposite extreme, a natural state full of dynamic spontaneity, nor do we become 'lucid' thinkers of an impossible revolution, deriving pleasure from the fact that it is impossible. The qUestion has always been organizational, never ideological; is it possible to have an organization which is not modeled on a state apparatus, even if it anticipates the State of the future? Can we therefore propose a war machine composed of lines of remigration? In opposing the war machine to the State apparatus, in dealing with any conjunction, whether musical or literary, we must evaluate the degree to which we approach the opposing poles. But how can a war 162 machine be modern in any way? And how can it deal with its own fascist dangers faced with the totalitarian dangers of the State? How can it deal with its own dangers of self·destruction faced with the conservation of the State? In some ways it's very easy, it's done every day and it happens by itself. The mistake would be to say that there is a global State which is master of its plan and guardian of its traps. Then a form of resistance, taking on the form of the State, will betray us, smother and fragment itself by its disintegration into partial and spontaneous local struggles, Even the most centralized State is not at all master of its plans. It is an experimenter, making injections here and there, finally unable to predict anything at alL Even State economists consider themselves incapable of predicting an increase in monetary supply. American politics are clearly obliged to proceed by empirical injections and not at all by apodictic programs. State powers conduct their experiments along these different lines of complex conjunction, leading (0 experimenters of another kind, with baffled expectations, tracing the active lines of remigration, looking for the conjugation of these lines, augmenting or slowing down their speed, creating little by little the plan of consistence, and a war machine which measures with each step the dangers to be encountered. Our situation is characterized by both what is beyond and what is within the State. A large abstract machine which encodes monetary, industrial and technological fluxes is formed by what is beyond the State, by the development of the world market, the power of multi�national SOCieties, the outline of a global organization and the extension of capitalism throughout the entire sodal body. At the same time the means of exploitation, of control and of surveillance become more and more subtle, diffused and, in a way, molecular. Workers of the rich countries necessarily take part in the looting of the third world, and men necessarily take part in the exploitation of women, etc. But the abstract machine and its malfunctions are no more infallible than nation States which don't correct mistakes within their own territory, let alone in ·the movement from one territory to another. The State no longer has the political, institutional or financial means to combat or resist the socia! counterattacks of the machine. It is doubtful that it can rely forever upon old social forms, like the police, armies, bureaucrats (even unionized), collective equipment, schools and families. Following lines of gradiency and remigration, enormous landslides occur within the State affecting mainly: territorial divisions; mechanisms of economic control (new unemployment and inflation); basic regulatory .structures (crisis in the schools, unions, army, women, etc.); recovery demands which are becoming qualitative as well as quantitative (quality of life instead of 'standard of living'), all of which constitutes what we might call the right to desire. It is not surprising that all kinds of interests, whether they be minority, linguistic, ethnic, regional, sexist, or juvenile, regarding the world-wide economy Or the conjunction of the nation States, are being questioned in a very immanent manner, not only by outdated groups but also by contemporary forms of revolution. Instead of betting on the eternal impossibility of revolution and the fascist return of a war machine in general, why not believe that a new type of revolution is about to become possible? And that all types of mutant machines are living, engaging in warfare, coming together to trace out a plan of consistence, to undermine the organizational plan of the World and its States? For once again, the World and its States are no more the masters of their plans than the revolutionaries are condemned by their mutant project. Each piece plays together in a very uncertain game, "face to face, back to back, back to face. . . . " The question concerning the future of the revolution is a bad one, because as long as we insist on it there are those people who will refuse to become revolutionaries. And this question is purposefully repeated in an attempt to divert our attention from the matter of real concern, the stages of popular, germinal, revolutionary activity in every 163 place and at every level. TrO"5lated by Janet Hom Excerpted from Dialogues by Gilles Deleuze / Claire Parnet, Paris: Flammarion, 1977 1 , Georges Dumczil, notably Heur ef malheur du guerrier (PUF) and Mythe et Epopee, Vol. 1I (Gallimard). Luc de Heusch, Le Roj iVfe oul'origine de "Etat (Gallimard). 2 . Pierre Clastres, La Guerre dans /essoderes primitives, in Libre, No. I (Payot). Schizophrenile® (MASOREDAZINE, for schizo-affect) " . . . chronic schizo-philes who have either regressed to a higher level of normalization after initial improvement, or have failed to respond to previous psychotropic inducing medication . . . can improve significantly [with] Schizophreni!e Prescribing In/ormation, Schizophrenile® . " 1978 " . . . the onset of masoredazine's activity can be observed even on the first day of treatment. This rapid onset of action makes masoredazine valuable in the SchizophrenzJe Prescribing In/ormation, treatment of affect inadequacies. " 1977 Pati�"" .,hould b� k�pt lying down for " lu" of!�-h�lf hou, �f", ,njenion Available in 3 dosage forms: Tablets: 10, 2 5 , 5 0 and 100 mg. Concentrate: 2 5 mg/cc. Injectable: 1 cc (25 mg) . -Side effects are usually mild or moderate. -Except for tremor and rigidity, adverse reactions are usually found in patients receiving high doses early in treatment. lod;"',;o,,; S<hllo-.ffen [. <uh",,1 der;".,;".) Co"""j"djc;uio"" No,m.,j.i,y. tonsj".n<y. fili.1 deva,;on, tomp"',i.w.,,, rdemifi,.,;on, j",.rEerily. ..,me of purpa,e .mI "'p"n,i/Hilty W.rning" Admin"'" ,"u,j"",ly .nd ;nae.« dos.go gc:adu.lly '" p.".O(, p>fW'pwng on .«,.,(1., «qu,,,,,! .ph-'-\i{ f.cult'r, -Low incidence of Parkinson's syndrome. -Drowsiness and hypotension are the most prevalent side effects encountered. SCh"lZOPhreDiJe Q 165 E Syntax: arrangement of the army (Norman Brown). Language free of liyntax: demilitarization of language. James Joyce "", new words; old syntax, Ancient Chinese? Full words: word� free of specific function. Noun is verb, is adjective, adverb. What can be done with the English language? Use it as material. Materi­ al of five kinds: letters, syllables, words. phrases, sentences. A text for song can be a vocalise: just letters. Can be just syllables, just words; just a string of phrases; sentences. Or combinations of letters and syllables (for example), letters and words, et cetera. Empty words has IV parts (or Lectures). Part I has phrases, words, syllables and letters obtained by subjecting the Journal of Henry David Thoreau to a series of I Ching change operations. Part II omits phrases. These and words are omitted in Part Ill. Part IV has only letters and silences. Thus the text as an entity is a metamorphosis from a language already without sentences to a spoken (and sometimes vocalized) music. In this ms. each event (syllable or leUer{s]) is numbered. Lecture III has 4006 events. Some of these are followed by a sign for liaison ( ::: ). In a reading these connected events are pronounced with a single breath. A new breath is taken for the next event(s). A period followed by the sign # indicates a silence, the length of which is concluded when a running stopwatch reaches a 0 or 30. The parallel lines (//) do not affect a performance but indicate the ends of lines in the type­ script. Underlined syllables or letters (e.g. event 27, ru) are vocalized rather than spoken. They were italics in the Journal of Thoreau from which this mix was obtained. The Roman numerals refer to the volumes of the Journal (l�XIV). The Arabic numbers are page numbers. Since each volume begins with pg. 3, 2 is added to each number, the number of pages in the volume being related to the number 64 in order to make the I Ching chance operations determinative. The numbers within squares (e.g. event 8, ) indica'te indentations in the type­ script. Making music by reading outloud. To read. To breathe. Changing frequency. Going up and then going down: going to extremes. Establish (Part I, II) stanza's time. That brings about a variety of tempi (short stanzas become slow; long be­ come fast). To bring about quiet of IV (silence) establish no stanza time in 1II or IV. Not establishing time allows tempo to become naturally constant. Instead of going to extremes (as in I and II), movement toward a center (III and IV). IV: equation between letters and silence. Making language saying nothing at all. What's in mind is to stay up all night reading. Time reading so that at dawn (IV) the sounds outside come in (not as before through closed doors and windows). [TIl • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • , , , \ ]I }/fJ-71 rn­ r' 11I nO- 2- 1 11 ft � i-+JTj;� 3 �L . �:��� 1uiuHv llJ · /��� ��. . ill . . 121 ill tl lJ[ )3)-7 tltl{r (j) @ !Lr12-q t17.t :;' � 2C tfJI-3 r -:: X!L#9' \! Aj b YJf IC;-2/ as ll lJH � :::: 7 ZJII/I/r;.? � k 11- 2W; ra,t =S ZJJt78-� tluf!? :: r V1l1 3!3 '1 fUn! 0/ '0J.2.tb S 0; b If NI:, MlJ 11 }Jf-7 fJ.il7Mt. }6 1- /;'6-3 ')� s)t1/1. ::: A & Vill¥M i hc(;it f 11 �2Ho /2C\ C.�) (jj) Jf3W21 IL C. I) 11131'7 )' atU�C I ! Sg-')g . mitt' � m IX 3{;O·z th& 5 c ' � c 7 C 1 'Z 3 c 11 3]7- ? wiUv (: Vi lll 2i/- 6 mr ,.(1.., \ . s s.� � � �y . L j�o-{\n�') lffJ) S i & illm - Y ff/l)l;L .J . . \i1I.f. IJ..-W02 IiS:; _ yji i \�.s' C1/f1v- I � c:. I. I l l S L 5 J! 3S/-3 }. Ui- ,. X 13,!,1-!/ & 7 L L -. & i) m -Z 3'1 t 5 i ��. IZr2�3 j� ZJl l3�-b sJJIliZ· 'J.O 50 f][ 3'!J2-i) I W It9-9) L _-{ v17r � {JJJ.J. fib :f � In{.. - � 0(.- # (oV)C / - tk, ;f <: _,. , y� � 0 ) r{;j) 1JI !S-if-I ;zi)r s u II J7i-3 iI� ) Z- 69-7! tJt/� ( ]J;Iio/tH Ii ; t- 3:)1/-6 t � c t,j 1 ): 4i�'J{) 11(1,; 'OO d .-f Y 63'ba S C Yfjt 2 \�-l, tlu� f{ ;813 /It e I : � 11- 377r �� --e o !l ¥/LHZ �hl \ I u 1 � '1 IX /ij% /1-( Zfl 309' 1/ 'llJ3k7'J t .-t IO N $1/-[ T � ZJJII;IJl:t f'(/; s t � \ 1- I � � b -r( jy /;161 /� tr-v -::.- J{ I CfH93 7 5 C m !b7-) nff C- .. q lfl 1 35,jM f Y} ( I 1-2/-3 1?\, C. blrJ-P fI� 3 y;7: ¥D8}[l tit, � � NY 19'7-201 ...e.- C \ VJlJ 2 11-3 f c � Z 27/-3 j/r c. 7 VJlf-7ki " I- c b 0 \ � . } � 'd1iT � ¥6) A!- !;l ?!)H t 9 Zi7>5h ?1r c. [ll/37j t!v G 00 I{JL 25!j-9/ nr , !JIIJ(J -!2 t :::. ' 1 /;/- 3 Sn-- !: 3J1 3 ;2- 1 l \{/i; ·8 5 1;/ 0 i \ gfv c ) XII2.3/-3 � J1Lr3¥�{f' 'Z /1 1 6I 3zS' )OID Irs 0 ic � YL 5-] ' :' . 1 l X ?M � /0! 1- 1.// I C ) Yl 90' 2 ; � ::! (I-­ � ZJf If?} 1 VJI 1/)-3 i t . 0 :- 5 � 'b !L 32 3 .5" S 1 Ii j��-fj ' )J (, -TV" ill 7Z-S. .JP---283 '- S u (i:' ® rll-7'-7 n 1 1- 3. ') Ii M-? i m loi-II 5:t g[.21-7'7 (, "[;80 '2. /lo -/l. a'/;-� 71 220·3 ! � '5 )11 -3 i ' Jft : � II- 112' 1 1M KIf : , i 1!t, 3JL nt/·k 'f 11- HH 'In 71l- ') o/b-� i v � I S ? 11' 171,3 L 3 � \' � w/v G hv � ', 0 ,,L C {)U. ?J}l 21u 2- J 5 ///J) Z[39f 0 [X2i} )' .-f- -::;. J.t/?I'] --- i7T7T nj . ! 'UJl .7. b . � ]Jl-t3-)� lz i/l/ .:. L£ 27gJd U 1'7·0 2JJt/il1 I . 4=T � r SIll2 g·3f! .e. 0 / 175 Pat Steir Q. � � () q.. o � !V\ ? .:r M A G {) I '" ""Q £ :r:: M 1\ G I 0 bI E 1": i t.l1 A G U1 3J N E ::c �k uJ A � O ( � I 6 E r: N E ---L 0 E M A- G J N E .,.. � 3 C> t-.. I J W J /V\ ," 0 ,0 'l' H E 0 -e s � s -1 ?' 1 c (j) ..- G 0 H 0 - L 6J'S L 0 v +i E 'S f 1-1 t: .. + L E 0 f N H -r - I + " N R. <:. ,< t' -.S N f M c £ 0 N D E /<. / T R T • 0 •• G :5 H ., �, A.- f S ..; 5 u A L - Ii R P A. - \ D G L .... ,. P .j. , I. e H .y A T F A ).. <;; - IV aJ £ .'B -I- .. b D R A S .P c B ,� L 0 3< £ f' I' p 0 0 0 IJ D £; E p '( r<.. € 0 R T \ • I.! £. W do A - 1 L ,0 f '1' t1 � N C G A A - - I IV C) 0 x fl D A I � /) R c. -l-i E . '5 � }< V L s E ,. 0 IJ r " c +- .. Iv' fJ 6 L " " + G '" + ,f >I 3� E A O. A . s :C: ' "': • • '. P I 15 E P D - w I< s S" -+ G 'R 0 P 1 V u . 0 r )1. T 7 8 + A T " 0 1 .e. E (. 0 N C j; D G (:, • -r ! A c !� 0 � " I-) 2- � A ,<{ � L " J ff " B 0 1 N N (� 1 E; .fel L '· N G A , E . '" A � I< G � � F D N Iv t--/ V vJ , G"' 2 E I" A " 0.. � � f L N Si 5' M <Z S � Y k .� G "' P A , I-. I B I f?f) � I,) V •• C 0 "\. �7 £ A '( G N V L , <! 1.. A I 'II A I. )' .« V, L L Of +-" G <- R tJ N <=. L P. E j4 N R S tJ\ l' , s . M V H A 'S V 4. G t: ,, 7 0 I I \) W s f) L '1 M 1) r i 4 \ IV N \ G G s S .� A- C 0 N W c � H £0 D L tJ I)- E: R, 1 t b''f 1) e N S w A <;., \ () G S � R 6 1 4- , ..- S Yo 1'5 .J to .c 0 .s J3 5 >- e- N tv (; k S s· C!. I c 4 N' S c... N II f,J' E: S' V' t G �, � -:; f( Jean-Jacques Abrahams Phil Glass interview Fuck the Talkies This film doesn't want to be anything other than a gigantic remake of the joyous exit from the Lumiars ("light") factories, considered the first and last of all films, because it contains from its very outset all other possible films. The genius of the Lumiare brothers, with their prodigious names and family name Ito which we must associate the name of their city) is to have had the perceptiveness - earlier they worked to perfect the sensitivity of the photographic material sold by their father-to capture the basic desire of the Nineteenth Century: to get out of the factory! And to have invented the machine which reaHtes that desire, permitting Jean-Jacques Abrahams lives in Belgium. After twenty years of analysis, he decided to secrete a tape recorder in his psychoanalyst's office: ". . . A schizophrenic flash . . . , with the insertion of a desiring-machine, everything is reversed" fDeleuze and Guauan; Anti-Oedipus , Viking Press: New York, 1977, p. 56.} As punishment, Abrahams was confined to a psychiatric hos­ pital. He escaped and published the noW cele­ brated transcription of his "psychoanalytic dialogue" in J. P. Sartre's les Temps Modernes. Since then, he has published l'Homme au mag­ netophone (Sag/ftaire: Paris, 19761. The text which we publish here has not appeared in French. 5i 6s8� 3 s 1 2! Western culture a distinct reversal of pri­ orities. Any element of continuity, unity, melody. syntax, etc. is being broken down. This is basically what I refer to as schizo­ phrenia; but in political terms, not in clini­ cal terms. Now what you are doing appears to be, from the outside, very structured­ incredibly structured-but what's interest­ ing is that it i'i structured in quite ' a different way. The emphasis is not at all the same as it used to be, but is closer to maybe music in medieval times. What brought you then to put into question certain priorities in Western music? Phil Glass: Now there are two ways of talking about it. One is just the technical way in terms of music and I don't reany think that's what we're talking about Per­ haps more important is why one is thinking about music in this way in the first place. I've been thinking about this problem for some time. I became curious about this way of listening to musk that I'm involved in, and why I am making music to listen to in this way. I have to tell you that for years I did it without thinking about it at all. Like a lot of people I was operating very much in terms of an instinct to make a certain SCM 5T TWA ALA AL ZRN Sylvere Lotringer: There seems to be in 3s5� 2 20� CSR ABC SOA 2000 s 1 15 179 all men, even the most disadvantaged, to again become the immediate supports of light for each other, Instantly they returned our name to us by giving us theirs; we are all supports of light and the children of this brotherhood of Auguste and Louis, Thus we see from the beginning that the invention of cinema is a remake, We're through with the insatiable cry of the mirror of recogni­ tion, "What's new?" !found on every second page of Shakespeare), Besides, the first film was immediately remade twice !we cannot be mistaken as to the intentionl. That first film was also the only film in the entire history of cinema for which there was probably no prepared script to pass from the idea of subject to realization; that day, everything flowed from the source. The remark concerning their name enables us to understand why it could only have been produced thanks to the specific structure of the French language and of the vocation by which it marks those who use it, that this _ fantastic progress could have been achieved in order to complete the liberation of humanity from the preceding centuries of boredom, obscurity, and heartbreaks. When the film is projected, the spectators are directly connected to the desire of whomever directed the camera angles; the cinema cuts short any idea of impoverishment due to a linear vision of time and distance with which human languages were concerned right up until the present time, It established for those who needed it the sphericity of things which are only produced among men. There is no "else­ where", unless it is there where we imagine that representations are better than here where our conscience remains encumbered with boundar­ ies and feels unable to represent them to itself unless as still incomplete and insufficient, But the cinema, upon its invention, inher­ ited the complex dominating the Nineteenth Century, Fabrice's, equally connected to the structures of our language. literary romanti­ cism, scripturary of those who feel they were born too late and who didn't have the chance to experience the revolution or the Napoleonic epic, Likewise, there were those who weren't around on that day in 1896 in Lyon, because that day, like Sartre's grandfather Schweitzer, they were posing for pictures at Nadar and thus TWA OfS?a lC HLT 2s5 �.2s � 2sp� kind of experience, It was only later on that I began to try to find out what the experi� ence was really about. What was helpful was discovering the extremes of reactions to this. People got very angry about having to listen to music in this way, I thought that was very curious. Bill HeUermann: What sort of people? Glass� Well. other musicians, Actually there is a mechanism involved. It's a perceptual mechanism that makes this music different from other music. Let's start with something that's very obvious, which is the very extended sense of time, People will say. "Oh! Was that really ten minutes long? 1 thought it was an hour" or, they say, "Was that really an hour? I thought it wa<; ten minutes. " In terms of our traditional Western music, there's something radically different about it, That is one of the first things you notice. There is a perception of time in Western music that's very related to the West. We've made assumptions that music more or less takes place in this kind of time frame. In fact one of the real inspirations for me in doing this kind of work was to find that there were other time systems that were operating. I would say they are perceptual systems. You find them in other cultures and you find them in experimental music. You don't find it very much in traditional Western music. Western music tends to work in a time system which I will call a colloqUial time system, Most of the music we listen to is writ­ ten in a period of about seventy years. This music proposes a way of listening which models itself after the events of our ordi¥ nary life; that's what I mean by colloquial time, Now it may be an abridgement of it or a compression of it but it's modeled af· ter it. I'll give you a very simple example: the tradition of violin concertos-Sibelius, Beethoven, any one of those. The psycho� logical mechanism of those pieces is this: The violin represents an entity. As we listen to it we become involved with the entity p I OOOs7� I OOOs4� WSB SO 2� 5H 180 his brother {Cain�AbelJ, of a woman of "ill re­ and it's the transformation of that involve_ ment that we experience as the excitement of the piece. The violin becomes the hero of the drama. To put it in very simple terms when we listen to Mendelsson or Beetho_ ven, what we hear is the drama of the vio-, lin. When we listen to the piece we get con­ fused. We think we're the violin. It's like identifying with the actor on the stage. I call it colloquia! because it has to do with everyday life. For example the Ninth Sym­ phony of Beethoven is modeled after our own world we live and move around in. It's telling a story in the same way that we tell stories about aUf lives and the way our daily life is a story. It's just a story. I think that all the Beethoven symphonies are story, a!i the Tchaikovsky symphonies are story, all the Mahler, all this, it's teHing a pute", who becomes a bigot, then relapses into story. imprinted fifty years of delay on their descendants. It is therefore for aU the laggards who remained blocked in paper that it is a question of remaking an exit from the LumiElr8 factories for aU humanity, which would make them under­ stand that it was on that day of 1895 that the permanent revolution was inaugurated. But for this, we still need to settle the account of a deviation by which the cinema barely missed initiating the murder of that hu­ manity: the TALKIE! It is time to reveal that it was nothing more than the first talking film that set off the Crash on Wall Street, that incredible event for which we have never found an expla­ nation. King Vidor had, unfortunately, perfectly grasped the sinister thrust of the talkie. Hallelu­ jah is the story of a cheater, of a man who klUs debauchery, and finally, scenes of collective hysteria. In order to understand the effect of panic on the property-owning whites that this first talkie had (it couldn't help but produce an overwhelming effect, after thirty years of silent film), we must remember the fact that it was acted by Blacks. The slaves were abruptly exalt­ ed to a position where they had the powers of gods, indeed multiplied ten times by a sound track in which, at the time, one had to yell. The totalitarian regimes of the pre-war period became truly such only with the appear­ ance of the talkie. Finally, with regard to the Crash of '29, let's clarify a capital psychological element: the intro­ duction of voice puts an end to any possibility of real visual satisfaction. The silent film had permitted the folly of a stock system where no one cared or needed to see the securities that were bought and sold in more and more fantastic quantities. The talkie, which abruptly reintroduced sin, guilt, religioUS moralizing \the talkie remade the fortune of re­ ligions, the myth of the "father" and other gibberish like this! ) brings back St. Thomas' complex, an unheard of uneasiness because the voice has as its impact the bringing into doubt of credulity, whence the crisis of credibility and its S L ES.B CK. T I C A A LV I crumbling. 4 1 500536 •• Now when I say it's a model l mean it doesn't happen in the real terms that we live in; it happens in a model of it so we can maybe compress a whole lifetime into a violin concerto of 40 minutes or so. Basi­ cally, that doesn't matter. The model is the thing. Maybe Brueckner takes longer than Scarletti but the model is the same. It doesn't matter if it takes ten minutes or an hour. The psychological model has to do with narrative story telling. Right now, start looking at Satie or Phil Glass (I put myself in pretty good company; how do you like that?) or a whole generation. The thing that makes people angry with us is that the mechanism is not the same. Right away they're in a different world. At this point, the mid-twentieth century, we can say that musical experience has been completely packaged for two or three hundred years in a certain way. To open that up is like opening a door: we all have the key to that door, b u t if you try another door, in fact, you find there isn't any key of that kind at all. It's a different area, and what's interesting about it is that it corresponds exactly to what happened in the plastic arts and in the theatre arts. For example, in sculpture, with someone like 5 s 7 . I OOOs6A CMN UTX.S L D 4 3� BRF 9 181 We must not forget that America operates on the Biblical myth of a world where everything was created by the voice, Suddenly surging forth from the screen, the voice undoubtedly had on Americans an effect just as terrifying as that of the divine voice raining down on the Hebrews worshipping the-golden calf. It is not surprising that Chaplin, who wanted to keep on making people laugh, alone persisted for years in silent films. The voice is the return of the weight of false, crushed representations, it is the arrest, death, as the subsequent events of history have quite well shown: the paranoia of Big Brother Dan Flavin, the emphasis is placed on the material. There's no structure to look at, only the pure medium of his work. The medium is almost the subject of the work. Right away he is getting away from any i kind of imagistic and narrative way of ; working. I think the psychological parallels are very close. Once we have stepped out­ side of that psychological mechanism or model which has to do with what I caU the colloquial drama of art or making art into a colloquial kind of kitchen drama, then we're in a wholly different world. The fact is that at a certain point a very large group of people felt that we no longer could, or rather�that there wasn't any point, in working that way. It simply \oVas boring, it was shitty. It was awful and we couldn't be bothered with it. What we wanted (and not only we as artists but we as listeners and as viewers) was an experience that seemed to us more in.tune with our real perceptions. I think that we've moved not only in our per­ ceptions of art, but in our perceptions in general. We've moved so far away from being satisfied with modeling and narrative models and colloquial models that perhaps the extremism of our time has to do with trying to find an experience which goes be� yond the colloquial, right beyond the everyday world that we see. HeUermann: It is of interest, I think, to many people that this shift just seemed to happen. It happened to me, Fred Rzewski, Phil Corner, composers that had a body of work in other idioms, which weren 't exactly narrative cofloquial, but was, at that time, billed as avant-garde experimental. Glass: I think that that's what the avant� garde has in common. The fact that the languages are so different and, yet, the ex� Nor is it surprising that the surrealist move­ periences are the same. ment died with the appearance of the talkie (are there any talking dreams!). The silent film had Lotringer: lfwe can talk about this mecha� (there are obviously no silent films dealing with police inqUiries). proven that ]ife could do without speech; the talkie will prove that speech spoils everything. Another way of putting things in order to SIM understand the crash: during the silent film, 1 � . 4000 s �. I OOOs� nism based on identification, what you call kitchen drama, then what would this other one be? Glass: We are not accustomed to talk 3s7 � ASZ B� EV Y 4 s 2 85 BRF ALA 182 nothing prevented the children from having fun anymore, everything was permitted, and the parents. of the law, and all joy away; talkie represented the abrupt return of the melts prohibition, ruin. The talkie immediately reintroduced a "schizophrenizing" effect in the processes of identifications: it instituted a predominance of the sound track over the visual-speech always narrows and limits the image, and moreover, it introduces a delay-speech always lags behind visual perception, thus the cinema reintroduces guilt, obedience, etc., all the tensions, the alien" ations coming from imperfect, vicious, tricky, abusive, imperious usages of speech. All of the super-noisy pop music aims at wiping out the catastrophic effect of speech, of verbiage, the TV, of knowl­ knowing how to bawl as loudly as the TV sinister senseless yapping of the cinema and which never ceases raising a problem edge: set. Sound created and decoupled the overbid in the elevator-effect of the voice-we have all become operators the other to hell. of the elevator which carries The talkie, with the Depression, cast the world back into the blind hole. Each new film reproduces the effect of HaUelujah, threatens us with depression, with panic and can at best show us nothing more than those who escape from it, the last to have reached climax just be­ fore the deluge. The talkie dumped us back into the. most sinister part of the Judea-Christian con-game. It is the end of fraternity. Do you think that it is mere chance that the principal novel of the Andre Malraux's Man's Fate, relates an event of 19297 Yes, the Nine­ Twentieth Century. teenth Century novel of the crushed hero begins again in '29 on Bible paper. It is due to the talkie and the mistrust it engenders that people want to see the guaran­ tee of prepared scripts (the reason why people like Von Stroheim made no more films after the talkie). With the silent movie, we finally loosed our­ selves from the linear cause (all of Twentieth Century physics has been possible only thanks to the cinema), whence the poetry of the princi­ ple of indetermination, etc 2 000s2 0� PNY 1 634 76 DPL But then, once HJ about these experiences i n precise ways. We know that we have them, and that we have them at certain times. Let me tell you how I noticed it first of ali, how I got the idea that this was happening. It may describe the mechanism more completely. One of the first pieces I did in this way was back� ground music for a Samuel Beckett piece called "Play". I composed ten 2O-second phrases or figures that were based on repetitions: repetitive modules for two instruments. I took six of those and I struc� tured it so that you would hear a figure for 20 seconds and then 20 seconds of silence, 20 seconds of music once again and 20 seconds of silence. This went on during the play that lasted for 20 minutes, 22 minutes. That was one of my "early's"; I did it in '65. It was my first experiment with a non� narrative, non-colloquial art�making. I went to see " Play" a number of times after I wrote the music; I saw it ten or fifteen times. The thing that struck me was that there would be an epiphany (do you know what an epiphany is? a heightened feeling) that would occur as I watched the play. It would happen several times throughout the course of the evening and at a different time every night. I thought this was very curious. My usual experience in the thea­ tre was that the epiphany was built�in to the play so that it would always happen at the same time like when Othello was about to do whatever he does or whenever Lady Macbeth did whatever she did. So, what struck me was that I would go back to the play again and again and at least once in the course of the evening there would be this heightened feeling, this catharsis. It happened in a different place every night and I never knew when it was going to happen but it was definitely happening to me. I thought this was very, very curious. What the hell is going on? Now this is in 1965. I'm in Paris. La Monte (Young) is in California; Steve's (Reich) in California. Rzewski is in Rome. I don't even know these guys, right? 1 don't know anything. I've never been to India, MSE I OOOs l 1 OXY 2 s 8� SHe PG 2 5636 Ml 183 I've been i n N , Africa a couple o f times; but I'm sitting in Paris listening to this and thinking what the hell is going on. Now it's obvious to me-ten or twelve years later­ what was going on but at the time 1 had no idea. I was in the presence of a piece of work which I cDuldn't enter in any way through simple identification. It resisted the efforts of my normal instincts to experience it as a confusion between myself and it. So there it was-resolutely impreg� Dable through the normal approaches and there 1 was confronting it. Moreover, it seemed that the moment I gave up trying to be the thing that I was looking at, the pos� sibility of emotion arising spontaneously between the two of us, that possibility arose. Depending on my availability to this non-identification, that emotion would then present itself. I kept thinking, thinking, thinking about what the fuck is going on. First of all, I had very little help from writing; I didn't go to philosophy for the answer because I didn't understand it. Just thinking about it for myself, finally it became clear that this thing was going on. HeUermann: Could you say something about how this might relate to "Einstein on the Beach", the opera you did with Robert Wilson? Glass: The piece is 4 hours 1 5 minutes long so I don't think that what is offered to the public, or to myself for that matter, is the possibility of this spontaneous epiphany . . . It's not, it's more like an interfacing. I'm putting the piece there. They're putting themselves there and, if they don't expect anything, sure enough it will happen; but if they go there with preconceived ideas . . . . The problem with the traditional ways of experiencing music when applied to this kind of work and the reason why people are unable to understand it is that they go there looking for that same old hit that you got from Sibelius. You're not going to get it I}ere because it's not built-in. 41 1 44 TP Hellermann: Something that interests me SQ8 KSF very much is that Phil Corner got to these MHS CSR CSY 61 2 s2 � 676 184 the screen begins to chatter . . . , but the more or less artificial, happy ending doesn't solve any­ thing, the evil that was done during the film remains present in the spectators' minds. It is well known that Kubrick attempted to use the fact in Clockwork Orange that the cinema since March 1929 is the perfect Palovian machinery, or nearly perfect. Pandora's Box, and it's going to take a tremendous effort to get out of it. The talkie is the great thief of our lives. It can't help but be the imposition on the movie­ goer of an abusive parent-child relationship. That's exactly what is so serious. The silent film was the possibility for mankind to rediscover in itself the common language, the principle of the unification of humanity, in a common construc­ tion that the talkie tumbled to the ground by act­ ing exactly like what happenl'ld at Babel. The tower destroyed! Men were beginning to see each other, to know each other, and doing so despite, above and beyond their different lan­ guages. They were going to be happy. It was just too good. There were people who saw that this would make them lose their powers. Yes, truly, the introduction of the talkie is the work of unpardonable madmen. The opacity of the blind-spot of separation was about to disappear. That's why Freud wrote Civilization and its Dis­ contents and The Future of an 'flusion. things by Zen-Buddhism, Harley Gaber through Tao-ist thinking, Fred Rzweski and myself perhaps by a flip-flop out oj Post-serial or indeterminate music. I was unaware oj the Jact that your initial ex­ perience had been in the theatre, when you were setting up a sort oj dichotomy be.� tween narrative dramatic and extended time. OJ course, the theatre is the last place I would have expected you, or anyone, to have come around to the other experience oj extended time. Lotringer: It was not any kind oj theatre either. And any kind oj company (Mabou Mines) . Glass: Oddly enough, theatre work seems to be part of my-to use a New York word -karma. Or is it a California word? Anyway, theatre seems to be something very natural to me. I didn't give you the whole story. At the same time I was doing the Beckett piece I was working with Ravi Shankar who, by chance, was in Paris. He was working on a film score and I was hired to do the notation. In my personal history I am indebted to non-Western music, to theatre work, and to the art of people like Sol Lewitt and Richard Serra, etc. It's the talkie that inaugurated the struggle Lotringer: How are they connected? Glass: When I was at Ju!Jiard years ago, Sound imposes silence on the intimate Norman Lloyd told me that all the inno­ voices to which the silent film had begun to give vations in music have always come through the right of expression. We were about to get opera. He said that was because the opera out of the factory; evidently that didn't suit was theatre, and theatre was where you had everyone. Speech in the cinema bespeaks the the greatest need to experiment. I wa� spectator's indigence, his irremediable poverty rca!1y struck by that idea. I think it was a of words, always pushed back, whose absence lecture he gave for the fun of it. You know it reveals as pOSSible to compensate by the pos­ how people take an unpopular idea from session of material goods; thus it created the others and maybe he didn't even believe it, false needs of the consumer society and chases but I was won over by it. It has never humanity back into the factory, into the waiting bothered me being involved in the theatre; room, into the interminable preliminary. I always felt that it was a good battle ground. The talkie is counter-information, the re­ fusal, the denial of information. That's how it Having established in the theatre that provoked the war of '40,'45, which engendered field of experience, or that way of exper­ a theory of information, Shannon and Wiener's, iencing music, or having figured that which is completely inverted, and which is thus mechanism as the key to the experience of of aU against everyone, that imbricated the solitary crowd. euz 5 s 3� ePG SLY 5 5 3H RAM 9 5 .000. 5 . 3 HBL PN.SLD HJ 1 0 0 0 s3� B;\ 3 s9� 1 185 directly responsible for the Cold War, and for all present scientific theories for which we are still giving Nobel prizes to people who accomodate as much as possible the notion of entropy, white the error at the very outset is quite simple: the "information" that interested Shannon con· cerned the destruction of the enemy, helping us to kill, thus ultimately to suppress information; and there you have it! All of science is built on that theory of war and death, while forgetful of that point of departure, science is presented to us as a search for life; in fact, through research, scientists only resist the death that Shannon's theory carries implicit, without anyone seeing it since they give it the image of the opposite face. Now, the entire communication and information system in which we participate, everything that happens on TV, in the papers, everything that makes up the fabric of our lives, or what we believe to be our lives, comes from Shannon's theory. And that's why, since talking films, everything's been going topsy-turvy and we're croakingl And why so-called "information" separates us from each other and gives rise to the war of an against everyone, the universal planetary paranoia. Ever since the media does nothing but Shannon, human voices have been affected and no longer contain certain vital char· acteristics. We are all speaking Shannon. Particularly because of the inherent defor­ mations and distortions of their technique (crackling, that is, a group of infra-and ultra­ sounds which have enormous physiological ef­ fects because they act, for example, upon the fluids of the inner ear) the sound-media and par­ ticularly the talkies accentuate the imperfec­ tions, the "impurities" of particular languages, their processive paranoiac tendencies. For ex­ ample, in French, feminine voices have a tend­ ency toward a certain violent bickering which institutes among them and especlally between mothers and daughters a mistress-servant type relationship where the cruel, heart-rending and searing tonality means that one is constantly ac­ cusing the other, with every word, of stealing or dirtying up her mirror (competition among wom­ en). Now, by anchoring the spectators in the drum-case of a narcissism whose mirror is bro­ ken by the thoughtless sound-track, the Talkie WA HLT Te this work, I 've gone back into my music and begun to start including elements that are associated with more Romantic periods. In fact, "Einstein" is full of extravagant harmony. An end that comes right out of Berlioz. I discovered that once I had established a mode of experiencing that was so radical, language became secondary. I found that I could use conventional language and it didn't matter. I've just finished a piece which is extremely reduced in terms of the number of notes. It's similar to the pieces I wrote in 1968 or '69. At the same time I'm writing a super­ Romantic piece in terms of language. But in terms of the experience I think they are both part of this other course of thought I've been working on. When we talk about avant-garde, if we're going to use that word at all, we have to say right away that we must free it from the tyranny of style, We're not talking about a style, we're really tali!:.ing about a way of perceiving things. Hellermann: I agree, but what if we are talking about certain people or work that is also often thought of as avant-garde, such as Boulez. Glass: The problem that Boulez has specif­ ically is that he thinks he can establish cre­ dentials for the avant-garde, and that they will be established in terms of the language, the grammar of music. But it's not that at alL Rather it's in terms of how we exper­ ience it that music can be altered radically. Even when using the language of Satie or Brahms we can still write pieces that are ex­ tremely radical; something that Rzewski knows. And John Cage knows. People that are working in this way found that what makes a piece new isn't a new harmony or a new kind of tonal organization; it's a new perception. When I wrote part one of "Music in Twelve Parts," I said to a friend: you know, this piece could have been written fifty years ago; there is no­ thing new in this piece of music. The only thing new in it is the attitude of the music. P I OOOs7� I OOOs4� WBB SO 2 1 5b 1 EGG.XD PEP I� 3s 186 has accentuated that tendency-that the silent film used to erase- and one need not seek else­ where the origin of Lacan's research precisely on paranoia beginning with the episode of the Papin sisters' crime {incestuous miammiaml, one of the great mysteries post 1929-the in­ comprehensible behavior of the defendants at the Moscow trials is another mystery due to the general craziness caused by the Talkie-Genet forgets to mention that Madame in The Maids was a movie fan. The origin of Sartre's Nausea is no different: the lightning physiological effect of the Talkie; it is not surprising that he ends the account with a glimmer of hope for a possible, remaining chance of salvation, of catharsis to rediscover the mirror of the entire nightmare while listening to the recording of a blues song written by a Jew and sung by a Black woman (two means of maintaining a certain form of as" sential femininity and maternity in the world which is beginning to tumble toward a murder­ ous folly). Moreover, Sartre's theory of the un­ avoidable slipping into infernal dependency on the other's gaze, the theory of rarity, comes from the cinema which the Great Talkie makes paranoid, accusatory and tame. (The opposite of the movement of fascization, it is Chaplin's Modern Times which causes the gasp and the takeover of power by the Popular Front.) But does Bergson reveal that his entire "genial" professorial number on immediacy, etc. is drawn from the cinema- following close­ ly upon the appearance on the market of Edi� son's first invention- The Laugh (Le Rife) comes three years after L 'Arroseuf-8rrose but does not breathe a word about this source from which it springs .. Qh, those serious philoso­ phers! They really wish it were possible to be the son of no onel They are all prestidigitators who need to make the father disappear so they can exist. Thus Bergson is to Sartre what the silent film is to the talkie! But let us return to the essential evil wrought by the talkie. It is obvious that the talkie had the most disastrous effects on the paranoid tendencies of the German language, where from 1929 on, the cinema systematically intoxicated German minds with false informa· 4 SALES.BACK. T I C 1 500535 . . LVI The way we hear it is new, not Hellermann: That would seem the dIfferences between rope. They look for a new a new music. Glass: I call it the security ner. I think a modern modern "manner" is a form tion: it's a kind of false one can write in the pO" ·';or;;, and therefore, be in the Americans are more wi!ling out those kinds of ,,,;ur'n,,., those credentials . I tials. I bypass them write a piece based on harm'or';" been around�Beriiozian. stein" really is in the style nothing else, in terms of the other hand, many of the tinctiy mine, but the thing perception of it so radical is features of the work. What talking about is a point of Twelve Parts", part I could written in 1885 if someone had do it thell. The radical nature of feany the complete disregard perspective. Up until now marched along from decade each composer adding or bit. Now we have whole people who are ahistorical, all interested in the historical their work. Music for us does down the road of Schoenberg and so forth. The biggest cut to tion is to say: what tradition? care. I can say-I'm going to I ' m going to use Mozart; I'm myself; but, I'm going to fashion way that the subject of the work is . the juxtaposition hetween the . the work itself and not the work . This is a point of much more radical than saying, going to serialize the rhythm or 5s7. I OOOs6� CMN 634 1\�' 4000S�. I OOOS� 187 or whatever. To Americans of this genera· tion that is so boring as to not be believ­ able. We can't believe that anyone is thinking that way. Hellermann: What are some of the things that distinguish your situation from that of others working in a .similar idiom ? Glass: One thing that distinguishes me from other people of my generation is simply, 1 have more profile and that's be­ cause I'm interested in bringing this work to the public in a very big way. I love the fact that thousands of people come to a concert. Probably it's a question of temperament. Let's just say tbat I like to play for a lot of people. I know other com­ posers who like to play for a small number of people. I like that too, but it's more dif­ , ficult to arrange now. I happen to he better known than other people because I played that game and I enjoy it. I enjoy the game of being in the Daily News; it's fun and I'm not afraid of it. Lotringer: You mentioned Sol Lewitt be­ fore. It seems that you mostly associated with visual artists. How does your work actually relate to their own? SIM 3s7 � A Glass: Sol Lewitt was one of the very first people and he was interested in Steve (Reich) and myself. You can see why; it's not just that Sol took the image out of his work but that the mode of perception is in­ directly very similar. The first community that supported this work was in Soho, and before Soho was Soho. My first concert in New York I think was in '67 or '68 at the Cinematcque on Wooster St. , which is still there. We found that (l say it with a very big capital WE) the music establishment and the public were not at the outset inter­ ested in this work. If we had looked at what had happened to Cage, we should not have been surprised because he_ was, after all, a real pioneer in terms of idea and lifestyle and everything else. Really it was the dance world that supported him, it was Merce, and that was how it worked. So we should probably have known that it wouldn't be SZ g E V Y B 4s2 � B RF 2 S 9� .5s� AL A I O O O s2 c. � 188 tion on the nature of man and his relation to others. Hitler and Nazism are first of all a reaction and a consequence, an acceleration of this erroneous information-the sound track bludgeons us with the "information" that we are faced with the presence of a hidden enemy which must be crushed, an enemy which obvi­ ously the sound�track itself creates and which does not exist outside of it. It is only aher 1929 that the Germans became cruelly aware that they were being mis­ treated by the Treaty signed iri the Hall of Mir­ rors, that they were being crushed between their borders. Here is a hypothesis for the introduction of the monstrous talkie: technologkally, the talkie was possible from the beginning of movie­ making; financiers were the ones who decided to exploi! that possibility agai!)..';! the advice of professionals who perceived its aesthetic nui· sance. It was introduced by the same financial groups who had gained complete control over the radio in the U.S., and had been able to gauge the extraordinarily pleasurable feeling of omnipotence which they acquired through the control of such a sound source capable of envel­ oping the earth (thank you Teifhard de Chardin for consoling us by calling it the biosphere). Now in the U.S., radio remains private enter­ prise, that is, it survives only through advertising and is created to advertise. Thus, if, in the beginning, newspapers Were founded on a cer­ tain ethics of public information, it is easy to see that from the outset, the radio was only viable as a source of false information (advertising) of a "messianic" type: use Brand X and you'll be saved�and the underlying message: we must ruin the competitors. Thus it is necessarily a Cain-Abel paranoid style information; such from the beginning is the dominant tone of radio; yet what could still be absorbed by the American sense of humor and fairplay becomes cata" strophic, taking on an entirely new dimension when the system is unleashed on German ears. What makes it even easier to understand is that it is still going on. All the games designed to make Americans quiver and have fun or let themselves go come across differently in current German films as true fear, ominous anguish and PNY OOs20� DPL HJ 2 s6 � the music people that Would sure enough , they didn't. The that came were the artists years that was aUf don't mean just like Sol, but musicians have found a art world that is ready join in these kinds of we're making. I say that iments not in the sense that what we're doing, but where things are going to know how these experiences going to work out. The sO(lIld system I've had was bull! almost entirely by one gave me a set of ,p" a'''''', bought me amplifiers. I went out and bought the There must have been more than that were involved in building sound system. In the other room posters that they made for the itself a testament to their They were extremely wJ)p<m;ve the struggle we were nized themselves in Besides that, they really I often thought that we of entertaining this small was a minor form of show biz. played concerts on Bleecker St. floor of a loft every Sunday. and paid whatever you wanted to climb up six flights. Rarely more than two hundred people we never advertised. It was really munify of people. You would go in and see everyone, from people that ' totally unkno.wIl to Rauschenberg or or lack Tworkov. Sol was also there other musicians and dancers. Hellermann: Now where are Glass: At forty-one I'm just be" ieming understand what I ' m doing. I was tell yOll this morning fairlY succinctly the.�e ideas I had. but even three or years ago I couldn't have told you MSE I OO O S I � on SHe 2s534 PG 189 {the films involving Klaus Kinsk], for and it is not impossible, if we continue with the media (catas- One of the things I discovered recently was that I love writing operas. In fact when I was in the middle of writing "Ejnstein�' I said to a friend, now I understand why Verdi wrote all of those operas. So, one thing I'm very interested in doing is contin� uing to write operas. ' I've also gotten interested in playing by myself more. Solos. Playing in churches because of the pipe organs. To take my electric organ and put it back into the pipes. It really sounds good. I'm doing five concerts in Europe. One of them is in a church in Rotterdam and I asked some friends of mine to try and organize a concert in Paris in a church. At the moment there are not that many people of our generation that are working that medium, so it's very open. To 'have con­ temporary music, I mean music of our time, fer those instruments just seems like a very timely thing to do. That's the second thing. The third thing is I have an attach· ment to the ensemble I've worked with all these years, I think it's a band that should stay together. I really enjoy playing with them. Lotringer: You said recently that your pieces almost always have origins in techni­ cal problems, not intention or emotion. /s that a legacy of Cage's? How do you see yourself in relation to him? Glass: The people he likes to acknowledge are much closer to him but I have told him: you know, I'm one of your children. whether you like it or not. He doesn't see me as part of his family but I am. One of the things I learned from Cage is that when the composer makes the music he need not have any intention in terms of a particular experience. This, of course, is very clear in my work: I don't have to worry about the meaning of it. When I'm working on a piece often I'm working on a technical problem. I'm not thinking about any thing else anymore. I Lotringer: You didn 't deal within the a/ea­ torY aspect oj Cage? WX Glass: Never. That's npt my way. For me, ADS S6� 4H TP MHS CSY CSR 6� 2 s 4 � 2 s2� K SF SQB 2 s2 l KN Y very rigorous didn't participate in benefitted from it. My ed. It's so narrow in one way, that other people, especially Ornette Coleman who are so have been very important to me as a musician-perhaps you my work. Still, sometimes open things up for you by solving problem. I,otringer: A new attitude freed of any intention, what I would call "m'acJ,inic" Didn 't you yourself say, stein ", that you felt machines? Glass: I liked the idea. I did like anistic aspect of it. Steve more attracted to this than me, discusses music as machines. He image. For him the machine, the what is important. That's a very point of view. I don't take to that as Steve. Still I'm attracted to the could've also talked about That's another way of slicing could have talked about process way we would've been saying thing: by refusing to talk about and talking instead about D",,,dm,�' Lotringer: You're not in the more in the processes. o 2 85 21 cuz 5 53 7 8 CPG '53 1 1 22 BL Y Glass: Well, this is really the Cage. I don't look at it quite found and still find this way of artistic function as very liberating. know the thing about America, if you at it, we're very connected to the tradition. When you sec what came France it turns out if wasn't PicassO, it Dllchamp. Between the two of them it the tradition really, impression in America, Americans are surrealists at heart. RAM HJ 9,.000.5. 3 I 000 53� 191 But not way. Well, it's the American way. That's where we are and Jack Smith is right in there. You see Duchamp and Man Ray and then you know who Jack is. I think that's why the French have been so attracted to us. They see themselves in this kind of dis­ tortion. Sometimes they don't even know it, but really that's what it is. They recog­ nize their own roots even though they've been changed so much. Glass: Al ZRN !! &� ALA 6sB� TWA 3s 1 21 SCM 5T 2 20� CSR ABC SOA 2000s 1 Sylvere Lotringer! How did you get the idea to make Flaming Creatures? I started making a comedy about everything that I thought was funny. And it was funny. The first audiences were laughing from the beginning all the way through. But then that writing started-and it became a sex thing. It turned the movie into a magazine sex issue. It was fed to the magazines. Lesbian writers were finding pur­ ple titillations. Then it fertilized Hollywood. WonderfuL When they got through licking their chops over the movie there was no more laughter. There wa� dead silence in the audi­ torium. The film was practically used to de­ stroy me. Jack Smith: L: Wasn'f there a trial? s: There was a trial and I i0sL Uncle Jonas' lawyers were doing the trial, and at some point it was dropped. And if a case is dropped, it can't be appealed. Now the mov­ ie is permanently illegal in New York. L: Can 'f it be shown in some places, under certain conditions? Uncle Fishook was showing it at his mausoleum, but that's because no one has complained . . . It would be inconvenient to have anybody complain. But when he need­ ed a complaint, there was a complaint. At one time it was fashionable to have a work of art in the courts. All the mileage gotten out S: of Miller's books . . . And Uncle Fishook wanted to have something in court at the time, it being so fashionable. The publicity. It was another way by which he could be made to look like a saint, to be in the position of defending something when he was really kicking it to death. So he would give screenings of Creatures and making speeches, defying the police to bust the film. Which they did. And then there was the trial . . . I don't know what the lawyers were doing. I wasn't even permitted to be in the court. I walked into the courtroom and my lawyer said. "Go out of the courtroom," and I said, "Why1"-"because the judge is upset by too many men with beards." I was ordered to leave by the marshmallow lawyer that Uncle Mekas had. So I couldn't even see the trial. You know: it goes on and on. J�: I must say that when J saw thefilm at the Cinemat hi!que. people were laughing their heads ol! Mumble, mumble. It inflated Uncle Fis­ hook; it made his career; I ended up support­ ing him. He's been doing my travelling for 1 5 years. He's been conducting a campaign to dehumanize me in his column. There's just a list of monstrosities. I don't want to start that . . . So from supporting Uncle Fishook, now we're left years later with nothing. There's nothing anybody can do with their films. He's got the original. S: L: You don't have any copy? S: I have a miserable beat up inter-negative that's shot. He must have sucked ]{X)Ocopies out of it. It needs to be restored or some­ thing. L: Why don't you make another film? s: I don't want to let somebody go running off with . . . I am. I've already made new films; I have a roomful of films that I've made since then . . . But there's nothing in the world that I can do with them, because Uncle Fishook has established this pattern of the way film is thought about, and seen, and ev­ erything else . . I..: Did you actually mean anything through your film? S: No, 1 didn't then. But the meaning has to come out in what is done with the art-is what gives it meaning. The way my movie " "" 1 . .� , . 194 was used-that was the meaning of the movie. L: You mean that meaning comes after­ wards? S: What you do with it economically is what the meaning is. If it goes to support Uncle Fishook, that's what it means. Movies are al­ ways made for an audience. But I didn't make it that way: I was just making it com­ pletely for myself. At the time, that seemed like an intellectual experiment. But that point got lost. L: But that happens everytime someone wants to make art. S: If they weren't making this deliberately pointless art, then it wouldn't happen . . . And it wouldn't have happened ' t o me i f I had been perfect. It wouldn't have been taken up and used by somebody else. L: / read recently what Susan Sontag wrote about Flaming Creatures . . . S: I t showed that she was just as hypnotized by him as I was . . . but by that time I was no longer hypnotized by him and she . . . L: She said it didn " mean that was the strength oj theft/m. It's not just that it was comical, but makesJun oJ all sorts oj ideas we have deJinitions • " . S: Was it being exploited like He,ji)o'Q' Uncle Fishook's use of the word drifted past Miss Sontag . . . seems to expect anything from They don't seem to know what a L: What is it about? s: It's a thing that controls all the of a certain activity. And then gaged in this is sharing the money. �,����:��:J1 L: Is that the way yourJilm was done? S: A film co-op sounded like s wanted to do, to support. 1 n film to this film co-op. And then ;"h.,·.... grotesque parody of Hollywood. hook was heroic in her review. heroic? Taking someone's film away from him Uncle Roachcrust perpetuated the monstrosity of discrediting co-ops. That's why he is a symbol, an Uncle Pawnshop, a • 195 symbol of fishook co-ops. The only reason for the pattern of the 2 night screenings he , bas established is so somebody's film will . spend one night in tbe safe-if you get my meaning. L: Didn 't you want to destroy your work? S: Uncle Fishook says all kinds of fantastic things about me. If anybody that can only comprehend capitalism would look at my be­ havior and the only conclusion that they could come to was that I was trying to de­ stroy myself. L: When capitalism is in fact trying to de­ stroy you? S: And he's printed things like that in his column. Once he printed that Jack Smith's art is so precious that it cannot be exported. You know: seeming to be saying something complimentary when actually killing the chance of the economic possibility of my going to Europe. Everything on earth like that he's been doing. My life has been made a nightmare because of that damn film. That sucked up ten years of my life. For a while I was being betrayed on an average of about twice a week to Uncle Fishook. It was like being boiled alive. People would turn me in because Uncle Fishook wanted to get me and everybody knew that . . . (Sounds of the radio) L: Is that WBAI? Have you ever done any­ thingfor them? S: I tried; I tried. I went there a number of times. There are some dummies there. And I just had the bad luck of running into aU the dummies, I guess. I get these incredible over" reactions because I'm a very strange looking person. L: What happened there? S: Once I was thrown out by the reception­ ist. I was asked not to wait inside the build­ ing. I was listening to their begging for money and it really gripped my heart. 1 went there. Four or five times. Every time I ran into some dummy at the place, so I just gave up. I wanted so much to help. It is the only Source of information in the city. I fhink you have to be Jewish, number one. And normal, number two. The very first sign of the trou­ ble they had was when they attacked the homo who had a program called The lmpor­ lance of Being Honest, a gay program. And he was forbidden to put on one of his pro­ grams. People with their snot impacted. voices that they paid for in college: their rumbling suot. They wanted normalcy. Later the whole station was turned off by the same management. L: In Italy, little independent radios like Radio-Alice have a more direct political im­ pact on the population. It's starting in France too. They do it with very limited means. S: There's always been pOlitical art in Eur­ ope. There's never been any political art in this country. L: Do you consider your art political? S: I wouldn't put any program out now un­ less it had an overtly political title. L: How about your slide-show, do you con­ sider that political? S: If you can put an explicit title on some� thing implicit, that's almost enough-be­ cause you're giving the indication of how to see it. Not everything has to be cerebral at every moment . . . But the title does have to be explicit. The title is 50 percent of the work. That's why I shudder with the title of your magaZine. You have that chance to say something. L: A title is language, and I'm not sure lan­ guage can be that effective. s: But thoughts can. The world is starving for thoughts. I worry about the thoughts. A new thought must come out in new language. L: What was the title before: "/ was a Mekas collaborator?" S: Let's see. The program before that was: " The Secret of Rented Island" , and the pro­ gram before that was "How can Uncle Fis­ hook have a Free Bicentennial Zombie Un­ derground", and the title before that was . . L: So it didn 't realty matter if you actually had a slide show or not because you've ad­ vertised the title; the title is sufficient. s: Almost. You don't have to see the slide show as far as I'm concerned. The slide is the entertainment, the icing. I mean there's a thought, there's a socialist thought in it, but the information and aU the intellectual con� tent is being conveyed by the title. You can become so explicit that you can state � / ' 198 ized. But that's where the people in the thea� ter are supposed to be coming in and helping the atmosphere. And. you see, they're not. I took my program to a gay theater, and he couldn't understand how it was gay, because he was unable to see it in a context. If it wasn't discussing exactly how many inches was my first lollipop, well then it wouldn't be anything they'd be interested in. And so I couldn't get this gay theater. It was one of the places I tried. Getting theaters is one of the 7 labours of Uranus. I,: What was that: HI was a Mekas Collabo­ rator!" I put the ad in the paper and then I didn't go to the theater. The ad was as far as I could get with a lobotomized, zombified . S: L: What do you mean by that? S: That if a program has any intellectual in­ terest at all then it can only be given one or two nights�but you can be entertained to death in this country. L: Is that the slide show you want to pre­ sent? That slide show is just the same mass of slides: I've been showing it for years. Every once in a while I have a new shooting session and add a new scene to iL Nobody has ever complained. It's always, you know, com­ pletely interesting. The Penguin Epic is all new, though . . . S: L: Why did you put that Swastika there? Nazism and capitalism have melted to­ gether by this time. I think that Nazism is the end product of capitalism. That's why I don't bother with words, because to me it's only a matter of if a thing is given to you or taken from you. And the words are only go­ ing to be twisted around some" 'ay by some­ body somehow. For instance, you can make the word socialism mean anything on earth. s: to try to prevent words from being twisted around. S: Dh, that's one way. L: That's why Burroughs uses cut-ups: L: It's an extreme way. S: That's the wrong extreme. What I mean is the extreme in the other direction-by be­ ing more and more specific about what you're thinking. The title is supposed to ser".'e �h7 i�ea. If I am lucky enough to get Ii' sOCta!istlC Idea . . . � oct( L: What do y�u mea by a socialistic � ide4. . S: To me, SOCialism IS to try to find s �'1,' ways of sharing. That's all. And to repl�,. ' the dependence upon authority with principle of sharing. Because it's very k ; that there would be much more for ev 'j body, thousands and more times for eveiYfi body if things were shared. We're living ' dogs from an the competing. li ·· '", .. ." .. likt Yes, of course, when you're young, i�}�: drilled into you, and you have to slowly fin4 your way out of it, because you find '11: doesn't work. Capitalism is terribly ineffi�, cient. The insane duplication, the insane:' waste, and the young only know what's pu� in front of them . . . But then. by exp'e:t; rienee, things are happening to you and you find out that this doesn't work. I mean: ' this is no! productive. I.: Were you ever competitive? Didyou eve,;)jj believe in thaI? S: L: It produces waste. S: I looked through your magazine and I was repelled by the title. It's so dry, youjusf want to throw it in the wastebasket, which I did. Then I picked it out . . Listen: Hatred of Capitalism is a good name for that mag� azine. It's stunning, I'll never admit that I thought of it. I�: I doubt that by saying something that di­ rectly you'f{ change anything. Language is corrnp!. S: Listen, you are a creature, artistic I can tell, that somehow got hung up on the issue of languagc. Forget it. It's thinking. If you can think of a thought in a most pathetic lan­ guage . . Look what 1 have to do in order to think of thoughts, I have to Jorget language. AU I can do with no education, nothing, no advice, no common sense in my life, an insane mother I mean, no background, noth­ ing, nothing, and I have to make art, but I know that under these conditjon� the one thing I had to find out was if I could think of a thought that has never been thought of be­ fore, then it could be in language that was never Tead before. If you can think of some­ thing, the language wil! fa!! into pia.ce in t�e most fantastic way, but the thought IS what s going to do it. The language is shit, I mean ih only there to support a thought. Look at Susan Sontag, that's a phenomenon that will hever occur, only in every hundred years. Anybody like that. She says things that you would never have thought of. And the lan� guage is automatically unique. Whatever new thoughts you can think of that the world needs will be automatically clothed in the most radiant language imaginable. L: Haveyou ever thought ofanother type of sodety . . . S: I can think o f billions of ways for the world to be completely different. I wish they would invent a scalpbrush. Do you realize that there is nothing on earth that you can brush your scalp with? . " I can think of other types of societies . . . Like in the middle of the city should be a repository of objects that people don't want anymore, which they would take to this giant junkyard. That would form an organization, a way that the city would be organized . . . the city orga­ nized around that. I think this center of un­ used objects and unwanted objects would become a center of intellectual activity. Things would grow up around it. L: You mean some sort of center of ex� change? 199 That's what supports the government. L: You mean property? S: The whole fant.asy of how money is squeezed out of real estate. It supports the government; it supports everything. And it isn't even rational. When is a building ever paid for? The person that built the building is dead long since, and yet it can never be paid for, it has to be paid for all over again, every month. That's as irrational as buying a pair of shoes and then going back as long as you wear the shoes and paying for them again. It supports the whole sytem that we have to struggle against. We have to spend the rest of our time struggling against the uses they make of our money against us. I.: They call it 'rent control. ' That's exactly what it is about: control through rent. S: But if the whole population has no conception of how irrational that is, that's how far they are from doing anything about it, or any of the other things that oppress them. An the money that runs the government comes from the fantasy of paying rent. L: As if we owned something. S: Yes, there could be exchange, that would start to develop. You take anything that you don't want and don't want to throw up and just take it to this giant place, and just leav� ing it and looking for something that you need " . S: Alright. So we don't own it. But do they own it? People that live in a place and maintain it and built it, why do they own it less than the government? Then you're saying that the government owns it more than you do. And that's also silly. L: And there wouldn 't be any money? I>: The difference is that in a capitalist country you owe money to an individual and in a communist country you owe money to a state. It still holds . . . S: Then things would form the way they al­ ways do around that. L: Would people still own anything? S; Yeah, I don't mind . . . Buying and selling is the most natural human institution; there's nothing wrong with that . . . Buying and sell­ ing is the most interesting thing in the world. It should be aesthetic and everything else. But capitalism is a perversion of this. Noth­ ing is more wonderful than a marketplace. It gives people something to do . . . and it can be creative. Wonderful things come from com­ merce ' " but not from capitalism . . . L: What do landlordism? you mean exactly by S: Fear ritual of lucky landlord paradise. S: Well, you don't own your own pro­ perty. " but even if you could understand that. why would you understand that someb<)dy else has some claim, or owns, your property. L: You mean then that everyone should own what they use? S: You want to start making more laws and more rules. But that's how a lot of strange things began. . . from the expec­ tation that you need all the laws and rules . . . L : But ll no one had to own anything. . . if 200 202 can imagine anything on earth like this. But if I try to build i t there would be a million laws saying I can't build it. L: It sounds like a building you could build in Miami. S: I heard of someone building their own building in Miami, and the city officials made him tear it apart ten times until he got every little thing just to comply with the city regulations. So you wouldn't do it i n the city. You might do it outside the city. As long as there aren't people complaining. And then this would dispense with the ugly rectangular monstrosity of the kitchen sink; bathtubs wouldn't exist. All this duplication wouldn't exist; it would save space. It's got to be built to be a model to do away with the ugly designs that now surround us completely. L: I think it is like art; as soon as there is a model it's going to be duplicated and then it becomes an industry. It's very difficult to avoid that. S: That's what I want: I would want them to duplicate my ideas. But all that's happened to me so far is that m y idea that I never had doesn't register-and they duplicate my icing. I know how just a thing like the ugly design of kitchen sinks destroyed my childhood . . . 'cause I had to fight with my sister all the time over who had to do the dishes. It was the ugliness, the ugliness of capitalism , making it impos­ sible for anybody to liVe a life that isn't made ugly. 1. ruler. And if people don't try to m "�'' start of getting along Without authon le . . � they wi!! never be in a position where tb , are not belng · worked Over b ' h·'S 0i �uthOrit ies. And so naturally the O '1 hke anarchy. We have never had anarchk" J but we d. 0 IlaVe chaos. There's alwa ys gOi " ' to be the government agents that a ' . re gaUl . to be throwmg · bombs, saying that th' . " anarchists did it, to set up a reacti on. "; . '. L: There are so many rulers nO i1iI .· Authority is everywhere. ' �.,.� S: They're dreaming of more authority. i,; !" ��.e.� ,. ��� J � L: I could do with a little more chaos;": myself· S: AU it is is an idea of gradually working . . . toward domg thmgs without authorities. ' Under an anarchist system you would. phase authorities out slowly, as much as ' could be. That seems a fantasy, just because iI's been so stamped out and­ ridiculed. Until the twenties you could go anywhere in the world without a passport. But they want to put you in the frame of mind where you accept more and more authority. You just are required to go through this ritual in which you give them the right to teU you where I can go. And if you don't, you'll be clapped in prison. 1.,: It is not easy to live in the way you want S: Where did you grow up? S: In the midwest. My father's family were and not to suffer from il. S: I don't mind a certain amount of trouble. I can't take these exaggerated doses of pasty Cheerfulness of capitalism in which you have to be happy al! the time. That can only prodUce a crust like Warhol. I don't want to be too happy_ I don't want extremes, I mean getting pinnacles of happiness. I can', live with it. What goes up must come down. I tried it. I waS" a pasty celebrity, 1 was very fashionable ten years ago . . this is being recorded? L: Do you like that? S: Yes, basically I'm an anarchist; that's not to say that I think there will ever be any state of anarchy. but I don't think that you should stamp out anarchy . . . You need it to flavor other ideas, because anarchy is the giving part of politics. In this country they have stamped it out, and made it a dirty word, made it synonymous with chaos. They want to tell you that's it's the same as chaos. It isn't. AI! it means is without a L: Yes. S: (laughing) Wonderful. I was hoping it was. 1 was very fashionable but I couldn't live with it. f wilJ never, never go near any· thing like that again. This was the golden gift of Uncle Fishook to me. Please let him · keep the blessings of pub!idty. 1 must say that before that happened to me, I actually believed like everybody else that I could not continue to exi�( unless I got a glare of publicity. You see, attention is a ba�ic human need. It's terribly important. If the hillbillies in West Virginia. They went to the hills because they wanted to be more independent in the first place, and then they became more independent because they were living in the hills. HiHbillies, nomads, gypsies are natural anarchists. baby doesn't get attention, it won't be fed. L: If society makes you unhappy, then it has won no matter what, S: I don't think so, I can be happy from being unhappy. if I know what I'm doing. I mean I have to struggle against Uncle Fis­ hook, that's my job, and I'm not running away from it. Everybody else that has been worked over by Uncle Fishook has just faded out, folded up and creeped out of the city, But I won't do that. Usually in life nothing is ever clear cut. How many people are lucky enough to have an archetypal villain for an adversary. L: You can everywhere. find Uncle Fishook S: When an Uncle Fishook falls into your life you have to fight it till the end. It's been dropped into your life, it's not the most glamorous problem, but it's been given to you to struggle against. . . This is something for me to do something real for me to address myself to. You're telling me I should forget it in order to be happy. I don't like it, but what's the alternative? I,: Do you know Nietzsche at all? S: It's probably trash because. he was jealous of Wagner. 1 don't like his attitude toward Wagner. It was just the typical, very mediocre attitude expressed in very fancy language, but it was the very typical Village Voice attitude toward anybody that is making a success, but a success based upon their need to transform somebody into an object, and then sacrificing him. L: Nietzsche defines a nihilist phase which corresponds to what you call 'anarchist': to question everything. There is a second phase which is more interesting: Once you've realized what everything is and how it works, how it's going to repeat itself, endlessly, you just step out Of it, and af­ firm other, positive values, You don't waste any more energy criticizing and destroying. S: Tell me what I am to do with the energy. I'm supposed to rush into the turquoise paradise of the Bahamas? After two days, 1 would be bored. I've got to have something to hate. L: Flaming Creature was about fun, not denouncing. S: 1 made a comedy. Now I want to make a drama. The movie I'm now preparing is go­ ing to be an Arabian Nights architecture film and it will be in Super-8. 35 miJ1jmeter is insanely wasteful. And it's never cleaned, It gives me the horrors. Uncle Fishook rep­ resents the idea of expectations from au­ thority, which is also perfect for me since I could spend the rest of my life demolishing very happily. I can be happy in this way. You couldn't, but it has just been my lot to have to clean out the toilets. I mean that's the job that's been inherited by me in life and I have run away from it, I spent the last fifteen years running away from it. No­ body wants to open a can of worms, but that's the thing that has been handed for me to do. And maybe that's a part of all bigtime manufacturers and capitalists, that they're an Uncle Fishook. Maybe I've found a key to them in some way from hav­ ing to deal with the evil that's come into my life, Douglas Dunn Jean-Fran�ois Lyotard interview On the Strength of the Weak The story j intend to begin with tonight is tak­ en from Aristotle, who tells us there once was a o rhetor, a lawyer, named Corax, who had a cef­ ta-in techne, a certain ert, a certain skitl that Aris­ totle describes thus: Someone, wh is Corax's dient, is accused of brutalizing a victim. There are two cases says Aristotle; in the first case the client is vigorous, in the second case he is weak. It the client is not strong Corax will argue that it is not likely his weakly client maltreated anyone. Very well, says Aristotle, Cor8x resorts to verisi­ militude; a weakling is indeed unlikely to bruta­ lize anyone. But in tile other case, if the client is strong, Corax will plead that the accused was quite aware that his stength made his indict� ment likely; knowing that likelihood, he took care not to commit any brutality, which proves his innocence . Aristotle objects that this use of verisimilitude is improper to the extent that pure and simple verisimilitude, likeliness in itself, is not resorted to in this case; verisimilitude is used in a verisim­ ilar way. In other words, the accused foresees the likeliness and acts according to what he is likely to be told. In this particular case, the likeli­ hood is not pure since it is related to itself; it is not considered absolutely. A difference should be made between an absolute likelihood and one which isn't, and Aristotle comes to the con­ clusion that the substance of Corax's tBehne, the secret of his art, consisted in making the weakest discourse the stronges1.1 I would like to show very rapidly that the im­ portant thing is to devise schemes within the discourse of the masters itself, the magisterial discourse, and I intend to confine myself tonight Sytvere LOTRINGER: You started danc* jng with Merce CUnningham. What impact do you think his training had on your work? Douglas DUNN: Dancing is automatically self-expressive. The doer being present, he can't help revealing - himself all the time. But there are ways of focusing one's atten� lion so as not to make that a primary can· cern. What Meree Cunningham offered was a body that wasn't in the act of primarily expressing itself. Having done so, much is opened that wasn't before. Many dancers have been and stm are busy expressing themselves. Nothing wrong with that. But what Merce and .fohn (Cage) did turned a corner. They outlined another possibility, another area to work in. I think of myself as working in that area. What Merce offered was the performer not telling you what he was thinking or dancing about. It's that simple. It is not simple ultimately, but in first definition it is. It's like classical restraint. You pur­ posely restrain in order to create something other than yourself, a new or different character. What Merce did was to restrain, and then not create a character. You are left with a person dancing. It's hard to understand why people got, still get, upset by this simple, concrete image. r guess it's unfamiliar in the theatre for someone to corne out "just dancing", I liked it fight away because at the beginning I wasn't interested in the theatre or in performance. I just wanted to dance, to do 205 the movement. To sense it, yes, but not to think about it, nor aim it anywhere. Later I got confused, realizing that going on stage, you become some kind of character for the audience, and began to consider that. to problems of discourse. What I am really inter­ ested in, however, and maybe this can be done at a later date, next week perhaps, is to find out, by elucidating these small instruments of cun­ ning, whether they can function in other fields than discourse, and more specifically of course, in the so-called "political field". My intention, if intentions are to be declared; is thus a political intention. Assuming that wf' confine ourselves to prob­ .!ems of discourse, the discourse of the master, the magisterial discourse, essentially consists, I believe, in an injunction concerning the very function of discourse, according to which this function can only be to say the Truth. What re­ lation is there between such a requirement and mastership? A truth-functional discourse, a dis­ course of knowledge, must uncover, must pro· duce, the conditions in which statements can be characterized by a positive or negative "truth value", must, if you prefer, determine its condi­ tions of truth. The conditions of truth can only be determined if some kind of a meta-discourse exists within the magisterial discourse; that meta-discourse has traditionally been the philosophical discourse, it is the discourse of . L: Did you try to reintegrate character into your work? D: Indirectly. In Time Out and in Solo Film & Dance I put on a variety of cos­ tumes. I don't work consciously toward or away from the $uggested characters, but I think the costumes influence me inadver­ tently. I haven't had any conscious under­ standing of the nature of the characters I become in my dances until the dances are made and I've performed them for a while. L; Are you looking for an element that would in some way unify all the movements? D: Yes, in different pieces I pay more at· tention to some elements than to others. Paying more attention establishes a degree of consciously determined clarity. Paying less attention allows me to get out of my logic in modern times. In other words, there is in the first place what is said, and in the second place what allows one to say it, Le. the dis­ course concerning that which authorizes one to say what one says. The magisterial discourse clearly requires this split as its injunction, its in­ tention, its project. There is accordingly some sort of an intimida­ tion in the discourse of the master, which con­ sists in compelling us to recognize a number of principles, Le. you must-your task is to-say the Truth, be truthful; you must assume that the conditions of that truth are not given, that they are concealed, which means that they must be elaborated, uncovered, worked out. That, as a consequence, there is a lack of truth in ordinary statements, in the statements of our daily life. History is but-such is for example Augustine's position-a struggle for the advent of Truth; the function of politics is merely a pedagogical func­ tion: its very essence consists in bringing about the awareness which will allow us to differenti­ ate true and false statements among the count­ less utterances we are bombarded with every day. The efficacy of language, in this perspec­ tive, is always linked to truthfulness, that is, to conviction, which is obtained by bringing the lis­ tener to recollect the lost truth. There are, if you will, a number of these injunctions; without claiming that 1 have exhausted them, I would like to stress that they are aU congruous, that they aU point in the same direction, ultimately, whether one be on a purely discursive level, or at the political [evet, or at that of historical prax­ is: they make truthfulness both the object and the means of discourses. I will add just one thing on that subject, name· ly that the whole position of Marxist discourse is Qetermined by this magisterial position, belongs to it in its entirety. Thus . . . the schizo-culture trend for instance, tries to avoid these injunc­ tions, by externalizing itself. Considering not only the discourses, but also the praxes of the sixties, it can be said, very briefly, that the general attempt was to stay outside the magis­ terial injunction and to produce, under extreme­ ly veried names, some sort of an exteriority: spontaneity, libido, drive, energy, savagery, madness, and perhaps schizo. Now. that is exactly what the magisterial posi· tion and discourse ask for. In other words, there is a trick of the magisterial discourse, of the Oc­ own way. In one section of Gestures in Red my instructions are to work on a triangUlar floor pattern, to hold my gaze on the downstage apex, to articulate feet and shoulders, not to turn more than ninety degrees right or left. The simplicity of this structure and the relatively low energy level of the movement leave me room to deal with that, and with something else also, the image of another dancer perhaps. Not to imitate him, but to hold the image of that dancer in mind while dancing. Not thlit others should or would see an image of the other dancer, but I'm feeding off it. So by mixing input I produce a dance image that is not entirely consciously predetermined. L: The original intentions are not what matters? D: Those are the originaL the only inten­ tions: the structure. And they matter absolutely. They are the means for making the work, they keep me interested. And they are calculated to produce a dance I couldn't have imagined beforehand. L: Do you try in any way to set the rela­ tionship of your dance to the audience? D: How can you make a dance for an audience when its members are all different and are going to read the same dance differently? No, I focus my attention away from what I think a given move or dance might be for spectators. And that leaves them free not to worry about my inten· tions. We both relate to the object, the image being produced, I as doer, they as watchers, or perhaps as vicarious doers, and there is no compulsion to agree on the experience. L: How much do you want your work to be Structure? D: I think of everything I do about a dance as structure. By definition. Of course it is possible to vary the timing of the decision­ making process in relation to the perfOf" mance: I'm interest. ed in the entire range, frOill making decisions in performance, to making them well in advance, deliberately, and practicing the result. cidenta! discourse if you will, there is a fuse of L: Is it improvisation that keeps a dance alive? quiring that we place ourselves outside of it in D: Nothing guarantees that. I have w� n� defed if the considerable amount of chotcc that discourse, which consists precisely in re­ order to avoid it. The device is very simple, it consists in making exteriority the necessary complement of that discourse. And, I may add, a complement to be conquered, an opaque zone in which that discourse must penetrate in its tum. When one externalizes oneself in order to avoid the magisterial discourse, one is just extending that position, nourishing it. I think this is true of any critique since it always implies the externa�zation of the criticizing position in relation to the criticized position, which will allow the latter to include the former as its necessary complement. All sorts of transposi­ tions can be made and you should have no dif� ficulty in making them on the political,level. Considering, for instance, what happened in the workers' movement at the end of the nine­ teenth century and at the beginning of the twen­ tieth, during the first half of the twentieth, to put it briefly, one will find that a movement which theorized itself as being localized outside capitalist society was precisely being sucked in­ to that system. Now then, it seems to me that the uneasiness, the distress which the radical critical movements are experiencing today de.­ rive to a great extent from the fact that this ex­ teriority has practically, has in fact disappeared. Thus, what we should devise is a strategy which can dispense with exteriority, which, as far as language is concerned, would not place it­ self outside the rules of the discourse of Truth, that is of the discourse of power,; but inside those rules. And which instead of excluding itself under the name of delirium, or madness, or pathos in general, or whatever, would on the contrary, play these rules-or rather the Rule of aU these rules against itself by including the so­ caned meta-statements in its own utterances. And one would then see that our weakness ! l don't really know who "we" is), can tap the strength of power to neutralize it. That opera· tion of counter-cunning, which would avoid ex­ ternalization, would necessarily bear against the essential element I mentioned earlier, namely the exclusion of meta-statements, the exclusion of the discourse on the conditions of truth. It would bear against that exclusion, Le. it would Simply consist in ensuring that there be no meta­ statements. And this would be done in the most immediate manner, not by denouncing that fact that meta-statements are supported by that in­ terest or another, this or that passion. (In trying to demonstrate such an assertion, One is in ef­ fect remaining i n the discourse of truth. Think­ ing that such a demonstration can convince amounts in fact to assuming that the efficacy of a critical discourse is linked to conviction). That available to the dancers in LazY Madge helps keep them from looking as if they are going through the motions of someone else's dance. Making and presenting a dance that has some liveliness to it may depend on some kind of matching structure with moment in the lives of the available dancers. But since there is no recipe for how to make such a match, it doesn't really help to know that. You just try what feels right, and see what happens. And if you don't like the result. doing the opposite next time can be just as wrong, everything having changed by that time. L: You want to be able to surprise yourself? D: Yes, as Merce pointed out, you have two choices physically: either you throw your body weight, upper first, and the legs follow, or you motivate the travelling with the legs. The latter offers more possibil­ ities, as it leaves the torso, arms and head free to do something else. I find I do a little more swinging and catching than Merce doe�. to surprise myself I guess, but basically I feel at home with his idea of being able to change the direction of the movement at any moment, so that it is unpredictable. I'm also interested in the mental set. In most of Merce's work the dancer knows what the body is supposed to be doing; the surprise and unpredictability are from the third person's point of view. I want to know also how the performance might look when the dancer doesn't know what he is going to do next. L: Does this require a different mental attention? D: Yes, and this is a primary interest right now , to mix many possible attentions. Doing set material you know well, some you don't know that well. choosing be­ tween five different elements, mixing them, and making up your mind also to do what you have never done before at this point in the dance: that kind of layering. I saw something like it in the de Kooning show. Up close you see the various layers, how many times he went at it. At a distance you see not any one, but all of the layers meshed. L: In LazY Madge you introduced impro­ visation into Merce's framework. 209 operation would thus consist not in displaying the hidden presumptions of the masters' meta­ statements, but in resorting to small instruments of cunning within the- magisterial discourse itself. I wi!! now illustrate this point by turning back to Corax's reehne, which Aristotle was bent on denouncing. Aristotle protests against a second level usage of Verisimilitude (he is describing the different possibilities of operation inside the discourse of verisimilitude in general, and more particularly in rhetoric!, and denouncing a "Spe­ cific aspect of Corax's teehne, he considers that likelihood exists in itself, e.g. a strong individual is likely to brutalize a victim. Such an assump­ tion is likely in itself, but when Corax says that his client knows likelihood is against him, that it accuses him on account of his strength and that he refrained from any brutality for that very rea­ son, one is no longer in the sphere of likelihood in itself but in that of relative likelihood. Relative in relation to what? In relation to likelihood. In other words, Corax's client is someone who ut­ ters the following type of statements: "It is likely that I will be accused of committing the of­ fense" . His conduct thus includes beforehand the effects of the law of verisimilitude and ac­ cordingly circumvents that law. The client re­ sorts to a second level likelihood, which implies that the first type of likelihood, Le. likelihood as such, is never irrelative, is never absoll/te, since any absolute, any irrelative can always be relat­ ed at least to itself. You can thus see that in t�is operation on which Corax bases his whole techne, a very im­ portant logical and assuredly political asset is at D: Yes, I mixed the two. I made set bits, then let go o f the order in performance. If I don't want to dance with someone on a given evening, I don't have to. I simply avoid the material that involves that per­ son. So emotion enters into the formality of the piece as a possible basis for choice. The piece has extreme limits. It would be within the rules, for example, if no one entered the performance area at all. But these people like to dance together, so there are other factors operating along with the rules. Not knowing what use we will make of the materia! when we go to perform sets up an atmosphere different from that surrounding a linearly ordered work. L: How can you control or modulate emo­ tionality if you open the piece to such an extent? D: I control it by not controlling it. In the other piece I'm working on now, Rille, I'm taking a different approach, setting almost everything, including the order. But I'm still not making what I would call effects. That is, I'm not filling out some idea about haw I think the dance should come across to some imagined audience person. I work from the inside out, to the structure, from there back, to the dancing itself, ignoring as much as possible the signs that pop up along the way telling me what it ought to look or feel like. I work with the structure, it feels like something, I work with the structure. stake, which is that no irrelative position exists; one cannot say: "such is verisimilitude in abso­ !ute terms", since absolute verisimilitude can �e related to itself, producing· the very oppOSite of what was expected. Absolute verisimilitude does accuse the client, but when related to itself it exculpates him. Such is the reason Underlying Aristotle's protestation, for he clearly under­ stands (he was very clever) that there, behind that teeny weeny matter, something extremely important is at stake. Indeed, to the extent that the master, the judge in this particular case, bases his argument on verisimilitude� on the existence of likelihoods that are truer than others�in order to assert that a Strong individ­ ual is "more really likely" to brutalize a victim, I can play verisimilitude against itself so as to dis­ solve its absoluteness. And the effects are re­ versed. . . As you can see, this is a very signifi· cant matter, a very serious Ol"le. L: There is definitely an abstract quality in your work. The geometric impUlse, though, seemed much stronger in your earlier pieces. D: Yes, 101, the stilI piece, was rather geo­ metric, as were some parts of Four for Nothing, Time Out and One Thing Leads to Another. L: What is the function of geometry? D: It's a starting point, 1 suppose, some­ thing to go away from, something to con­ tain and balance other elements. In LazY Madge there's hardly any. I broke it by turning· over the shape of the piece to the decision-making of the dancers. In Rille it is present quite consciollsly, as a ground against which to consider density. 210 You have all understood that, in this example, the client who is strong is precisely the weak one; t mean to say that his position is weak as a direct consequence of his strength. Something which points in the same direction is the para· dOl( of the liar, which consists in saying: "If you say you are tying, and if you are in fact lying, then you are telling the truth, etc" . Many at· tempts have been made to refute this paradox; Russell, for instance, tried to establish that there are two types of statements-such is precisely the distinction I was making earlier between statements and meta-statements, And Russell claims to solve the paradox by forbidding us to mix, to blend statements of the first type and of the second one: There is meta-discourse, and the effects of discourse should not be trans· ferred to the meta-discourse. But why is this transfer prohibited? Russell's answer is simply that if you do rely on such an operation, then no discourse of truth remains possible. In other words, Russell's refutation is not a refutation, it is nothing more than the magisterial decision it­ self, i.e. my meta·statements are not in the same class as ordinary statements. Thus. the paradox of the liar, which is irrefutable since it cannot be controverted without being departed from, implies that there is no discourse of truth and accordingly the function of discourse is completely diverted inasmuch as it will always be impossible to decide whether a statement is true or false. Another story concerns a Sophist named Pro­ tagoras. Protagoras asks his disciple. Euathlus, to pay him his fees. The latter answers him in the following terms: You haven't made me win a single cause, you have helped me gain no vic­ tory in discourses, therefore r owe you nothing. And Protagoras retorts: There is something you owe me in any case; you owe me the money, for if I win you must pay me and if you win you must also pay me. The debate Protagoras is re· ferring to is not that which the disciple is think: lng of. Euathlus is in fact thinking of the debates he participated in, which he lost. Protagoras, on the other hand, is talking about the current de­ bate between himself and his disciple and he states: This debate has come to a conclUSion; either you win or I do. Should you win, you would have to pay me since our contract stipu­ lates that the omtor's disciple is to pay his mas­ ter when he gains a victory. And should 1 be the winner, that is should you, my pupil, be the loser, then you would also have to pay, since in a judicial debate the loser pays. All of this is per­ fectly correct. L: How do you go about making a piece where the movement is fixed and the choices unlimited, as in Lazy Madge? D: First I made solos for each of the-­ dancers, and asked them to dance them simultaneously. They had to look out for each other. It was like the street, people with different intentions whose paths­ crossed at times. And then if there was nc{ one in the way they could dance the move:.: ment as wen as they knew how, but alway§ with an eye to traffic problems. Then I went on to make duets, trios, etc. allowing the dancers to choose from the material during performance, down to the minutest fragment. We rehearsed the bits in their original form, as duets, trios, and so on, but in performance we let go of that. I had made some rules before I began: I couldn't work out of the presence of the person who was to do the movement I was making; I couldn't set my own material except where it involved partnering; new material was to be performable as soon as it was learned and could be repeated. This last has to do with the piece being con­ ceived as a project. For two years I've made new material, we've rehearsed the old, and performed whenever there's been an opportunity. So in a given performance we arc using newty made, little rehearsed materials, as well as earlier, mOfe familiar moves. Also, J don't set rehearsal time. I'm available for so many hours a day, people come when they can or want to. I am inter­ ested i n accommodating their various schedules, and in disallowing theif using me as an aUlhoflly figure to prime their wills. In all, as a group, we have about eight hours of material available to us. We usually perform one hour and ten minutes, without a break. You dance along, and someone says "time," or the lights go out. L: The situation you created seems fluid enough to allow any kind of movement. Do you feel that at this point classical elements can be introduced and juxtaposed to . the rest without inconvenience? D: By working only in the presence of the person who is going to do the movement I'm making, I leave myself open to that person's in!1uence, and diminish overall considerations of style. The dancers are 211 Protagoras considers his relationship with Eu­ athlus in one instance as being of a magisterial nature, and i n another instance as being antago--­ nistic, which implies an important thing, Le. that there can be no school, because the character­ istics of a school-and I hope there will never be a schizo school- is that a certain type of dis­ course exists, which I shall call protected. If the 'pupil, the disciple, holds such a discourse out· side the school, and if he fails, if therefore he does not gain an outside victory, it willbe said, in a magisterial relationship, that his training is insufficient, that he should follow more courses, proceed with his studies, that he should be re­ trained, etc., but the blame for the adverse situ­ ation the pupil experiences wi!! not be put on the relationship with the master; on the contrary, what Protagoras says is that "this adverse rela­ p tionship permeates our magisterial relationship, and you are also my enemy." Another as ect of matter also deserves to be noted, which is that Protagoras' paradox consists in the same operation of inclusion as the paradox of the liar. When Euathlus says: I have never won a cause, consequently l owe you nothing, what is he talk­ ing about? He's talking about debates which are external to his relationship with the master. Protagoras on the other hand includes the debate he is now engaged in with his disciple in the same category as those external debates. Thus, in this case as well, there is a refusal to consider any debate held inside the schools as different one from another, as dancers and as people, and I don't work against these differences. It's a tacit collaboration. The common ground between us, aside from our desire to work together, is that each of us has at least some exposure to Merce's work. This guarantees an open and non­ analytical attitude to the process of learning and repeating movement. L: You seem to stay clear both from expressivity and formality, or rather to involve the dramatic element to such a degree that it feeds the more abstract aspect of your work. Do you see it that way? D: Well, I would say that a� the sixties fall behind us, an explicitly formalistic ap­ proach feels to me no less didactic than an explicitly expressIve one. D: Jokes are an obvious kind of perform¥ ance, not very surprising. Their suspense is familiar. They constitute what I referred to before as making effects. You try to make the audience laugh. to manipulate them as a group. For their own pleasure, of course. You can't do this without a fair number of already shared assumptions. Such a situa­ tion precludes the more personal, intimate, confusing experience I associate with looking at art. Buster Keaton's films work PEE�LESS H A N D C U FF. 212 some sort of a mets-debate; the current debate falls under the same category as aU other debates. The position of magisterial discourse requires a protection against external debates, it implies that we confine ourselves to a region of dis� course, which is simultaneously a social region, W",ight. II oune... '" , k�1 I'btcti CH 1,)"", ,�ec1 5 1 0 00 No. 200 , To- Pooh1. Loci: H..... emh into which the external debates cannot pene­ trate. The only permissible debates will be those concerning external debates. Such is the very foundation of the school, which is after aU one of the aspects of the magisterial relationship. In this paradox, Protagoras considers Euath­ Ius as an opponent if he loses, and as his disc'ipfe jf he winS. Euathlus has no identity, he can be Plated, $'1 \1\1 identified neither as an adversary nor as a disci­ ple, which implies that P'rotagoras already re­ jects an entire logic or predication or substantial definition. Euathlus has no properties. More­ over, one finds in Protagoras's paradox the inclusion of the future in the present. Indeed, Protagoras argues against his disciple by in­ cluding its outcome in the ongOing debate and saying: If you lose- jf you will lose as they say in ' Turkish�then you shaH pay and if you will win, then you shall also pay. And that inclusion of the future is worked out in the manner of a paro­ No 2(}Z To...., Doub1. J....od. H.,,,!: Cd. For J H ....,u dy, for the discourse Protagoras holds with rfl­ spect to his disciple is precisely the parody of the magisterial discourse: the master already knows what the outcome is going to be. In short, the future is included not in the form of a contingency, but as being identical to itself. The master has control over this future. It is a parody of the magisterial discourse precisely to the ex" tent that Protagoras actually considers that Eu­ athlus has no contingent future. He has no fu­ ture, Le. he shaU pay in any case, which is exactly the position of Capital with respect to any one of us: whether one wins or loses, one Plated. $ 1 1 00 "-.lIb, No. ZQl Lod: Drt.ctJ... Han,kufh Double has to pay. All of this does not mean that Pro­ tagoras is in a strong position, and whereas I said earlier that in Corax's case, the accused who is strong is precisely the weakest insofar as verisimilitude is against him, in Protagotas' case the master is the weak one, for he risks not be­ ing paid, and fot a Sophist this is very serious, since Sophists coUect no ground rent as philos­ ophers do, they aren't civil servantS, they are artists, they are paid on a piece-work basis, after each job, each performance. Plated only '7.00 No. 204 CIWD Hand Cd.., Dtench.bI. Corn-.)01\4 There afe many similar stories and I think we should analyze them carefully for it is not sure at all that they aU refer to the same cunning de­ vices; some of them could very well be based on other devices, but it seems to me that three or Plat"" only . RON POCK L E A T H E R H A N DC U F f' A N D LEG ! revent. n Convenj�n� to UO t '1' �"try cloy <>r '''' i\",rn�y--P \., iTO , a..nd 11...&, loMt.hu poeketM lor UtY .trl� 0-/ b.w>dC...t£1 0'1' - 213 four such examples are sufficient to outline a position of discourse which is curious enough in relation to the magisterial position; the former position may very well invest the latter, and that is why I chose the example of Protagoras, who is in principle the student's master. What strikes me however is that Protagoras resorts to a rea· soning which cannot be that of a master but which points to a discourse other than the Pla­ tonic, Of the magisterial discourse in general {from Plato to Marx) whose position is in fact al· ways the same. It seems to me something else is arising here, insofar at least as the trade of the intellectual is concerned�which isn't aU that different from other trades; new weapons are appearing, very small weapons, but very impor. tant I believe, and very serious. These very weak weapons do however have the power of upset­ ting, be it for a fleeting instant (but that is ir­ relevant here, since the aim is not to .obtain cumulative effects), of unsettling the magisterial position and the assumptions underlying it. Le. the belief in the existence of a meta-discourse, of an 'order within which discourses, and prac­ tices as we!! of course, can be grounded and substantiated. We should therefore continue to explore these paradoxes, called paradoxes because one did not know what to do with them, and which have been expunged, destroyed, like the works of Protagoras himself. What is involved here is a possible position of discourse which has effec­ tively been obliterated in its entirety and which can afford us new weapons. I beHeve it would be interesting to find out what effects these weapons can produce in the political order; this is roughly what I wanted to say tonight. I shall just make one more remark in that connexion, which is that we should imagine new praxes and notably practices of discourse and political prac­ tices, which would not be articulated around the idea of a reinforcement through organization or an efficiency through conviction, The idea that a radical polltica\ efficacy does not rest on truth­ fulness deserves consideration. The Question we should raise concerns the possibility of producing politica! efficiency not at all by linking it to the belief in Truth, but rather by developing it in the direction of a relativism, in the strong, general sense of the term, that is by accelerating the decline of the idea of truth, by contributing to its deterioration. This cannot be done by setting a new truth against the old one, which is of no moment, regardless of the name of that new truth. It would be much more interesting to imagine, in my opinion, a political for me because the deadpan attitude creates a separate continuity: something else is happening along with the dramatic rise and fall of the gag. A potent sadness for example. I don't try for humour in my work, any more than for any other effect. Still, I get some kicks. L: Is walking in the street close to your idea of what dance now is about? D: As an analogy, yes, somehow related to the work I do in LazY Madge. The mix of, on the one hand, orderliness, the streets, stop lights, traffic laws, etc., and, on the other hand, complexity, all those separate intentions finding their way in and around each other, on foot and in vehicles. I find that an interesting image. It is fantastically magnified in the films of Rudy Burckhardt. L: Do yon feel affinities with other dancers or choreographers? 0: As I get more involved in what Pm doing, my projections on other dancers and choreographers fade out. Now I can watch dance for pleasure. 214 efficiency whose aim would not be to convince, but which would rather seek discontinuous local effects which could disappear and would not bring about the adherence of those who witness them. Rather it would bring about something else which would be neither trust nor mistrust. something we could call tragic, etc., which would however be more like humor I believe !there being no incompatibility between these two terms!, It seems to me something of that sort is happening now; such is undoubtedly the case as far as some of the events happening in France are concerned at any rate, although ! am not yet quite capable of elaborating on this argu­ ment. I could give you as an example, without committing myself, a movement of the prosti­ tutes which developed in France this year. At first sight this movement appeared to be one aimed at pushing demands: "We are wOfk� ers, we want decent working conditions, etc.," but this discourse simultaneously implied some­ thing else, which in fact unsettled the relation of society to the feminine body, and even to desire in general. What it said was: "If you accept the existence of different kinds oftrades and if you consider that the motivations underlying their practice are good, are acceptable, then accept our motivation as well, Le. the desire for prosti­ tution. Now, this problem is extremely serious, and I believe a typically political modern action is involved here: it is punctual, it bears upon the inclusion of the desire for prostitution in the same class as all·other desires. . and it func­ tions, it seems to me, in the direction not of a distrust, but in that of the destruction of the be­ lief in the existence of good and bad desires. Practices of this type are operative not on ac­ count of their revealing a new truth, but insofar as they destroy meta-discourses in specific plac­ es. And what this means basically, is that such a politics is no longer centered around the ques­ tion of a pedaijogy, which has always been the case, for politics has always been pedagogical. Thus, we should no longer say: "we shaH gain victory, we shall grow stronger if we manage to awaken the truth which is alienated, concealed, repressed, etc."; Protagoras doesn't give a rap about Euathlus' conviction, such are not the terms the efficiency of his action can be measured in. Translated by Roger McKeon 1. Aristotle, Rhetorica, book 1l.24, 1 402 a 3 & 17. The works of Aristotle, Oxford University Press, 1971, vol. Xl, translated by W. Rhys Roberts. �'l't' the II " " " '" '" J'F/'" IISL" 't! Oft I I,.. . . · · · Ie vour own j tewehy. ! without the IllkL gold ring to hold together drfSles. · hilill to create a penrlant. l E T Y O U R IMAGINATlO1 "lIP' The 'PUNK ' 5 dlSt;nct.ve 'P' t., 14k!. gold. PO · t"\ V'cfot- \C\. e bOOY i h \ ls w/' " w4 sct r o l i� o . J (t'l l> -t- r� s c Lt0 +- 1,., & '1. /s ! . . " . . "" i iav tJP tl te-t\eT' -f�'" A cC\d �my > "' Oi L fC:' > ,' �,' ' > .. . . . : � .:. W� i� }JA'2� I \ (\ + � e- q�, , LIT n t.. 0 '1 � de s -tZ+\.A.+ \ n . : '.� \.eli!'\'- \�t f 0 ---- b� m , :>:' ' , ,', ' -I- Wl\S- -\-h� " : ,', " ''>''i' ::''':':'i � <:�\'"�t�,j' ; semiotext� 220 Back Issues Available ALTERNATIVES IN SEMIOTICS, r, 1 , 1974, out a/print THE TWO SAUSSURES, 1 , 2, 1974. out o[prinf EGO TRAPS, I, 3 , 1975. out a/print SAUSSVRE'$ ANAGRAMS: Jean Starobinski, Pour introduire au col­ !oque: SyJvere Lotringer, Flagrant Delire; Michael Riffaterre, Paragramme et signifiance; Luce Irigaray, Le Schizophrene el fa questioll du signe: Wladyslaw Godzich, Nom propre: Langage/Textr, Gerard Bucher, Semi­ oloKie et Ilon-savoir; Michel Picrssens. La Tour de Babil; 5ylverc LOlringer, Le 'Complexe ' de Saussure; Ferdinand de Saussure, Deux Cahiers inedits sur Virgile. Volume fl, Number 1 , 1975. $2.50 GEORGES BATAILLE: Denis Hollier, Presentation?; Georges Bataille, Hemingway in the Light o[Hegel; La Venus de Lespugue; Jacques Derrida, A Hegelianism Without Reserves� Ann Smock and Phyllis Zuckerman, Politics and Eroticism in Le Bleu du ciel; Charles Larmore, Balaille :v Heterology ; Peter B . Kussel, From the Anus to the Moufh to the Eye; Lee Hildreth, Bibliography. Volume II, Number 2, 1976 . $3,00 ANTI-OEDIPUS: Antonin Artaud, 771e Body is the Body; To Have Done with the Judgment of God; Gilles Deleuze, 771ree Group Problems; I Have Nothing to Admit; Deleuze/Guattari, Desiring-Machines; One or Several Wolves; Jacques Danze!ot, An Ami"Sociology; Felix Guattari, Mary Barnes' Trip; Freudo-Marxism; Psychoanalysis and Schizoanalysis; FJlery­ body Wants to Be a FaScist; Guy Hocquenghem, Family, Capifalism, Anus; Sylvere LaUinger, Libido Unbound; The Fiction of Analysis; Jean-Frantiois Lyotard, Energumen Capitalism ; lohn Rajchman, Allalysis in Power. $3.50 Volume II, Number 3, 1977 . NIETZSCHE'S RETURN: Deleuze,.Lyotard. Foucault, Bataille, Derrida, etc. Vol. I l l , No. I: $3.00 F'orthcoming Issues SCBIZO-CULTURE 2 Snecial Editor; Syivere Lotringer POLYSEXUALITY Special Editor: Frallt,:ois Peraldi PIER PA OLO PA SOUNI Special Editor: B. Allen Levine 221 A SECOND CALL TO POLYSEXUALITY Neither angel nor animal- no Christian morality Neither man nor woman - no biological sexuality Neither husband nor wife- no legal sexuality We are looking for: Anything that can break apart bipolar sexuality, that can lead to other modes of pleasure and their multiplication. Recipes: for example, how can two men, three women, a hammer, an apple and a turkey make love together! Tools of ecstasyI from boots to letters. Axes of ecstasy, from dry to moist. from soft to hard . . . Spaces of ecstasy: where can we come? Between razor and revolver . . . between hammer and anviL . . between doors . . . between currents? A new way of mapping out erotic space, cities, countries, bodies. An erotic anatomy of the bodyI an anatomical physiology of the erotic body. Write us, contact us, help us to open the space of polysexualities. Special Editor: Frant;:ois Peraldi CREDITS FOR VISUALS Front cover: Kathryn Bigelow-Back cover: Kathryn Bigelow and Denise Green-Cover pictures: Michael Oblowitz-p.2: Christopher Knowles-p.B: Howard Buchwald-p. 1 8: Michael Oblowitz, Mr. Police (Mr. Universe Contest, N.Y. 1978)-p.24: Christopher Knowles-p.2S: Computer Printout-p.30: Jimmy De Sana, from forthcoming book, Deviants-p .32: James Holmstrom-p.39: Transeditions-p,41: Los Angeles Times (Sir­ han Sirhan, Unidentified man and woman in Ambassador Hotel, Henry Luce)-p,42: International Terrorist Times (Patty Hearst)-p.43: Michael Oblowitz, from forthcoming book, Blind Eye-p.47: Digne Meller Marcovitz-p.SO: Jimmy De Sana op. cit.-p.S4: Ken Kobland (The Shaggy Dog Animation)-p.57: Johan Elbers (Shaggy Dog)-p .64: Michael Oblowitz, op. cit -p 76 80: martine Barrat-p.95: Martim Avilez-p.97: Mia­ p.99: Musee de L'Homme, Paris, Excision-p.102: Jimmy De Sana, op. cit.-p . 1 1 3 : Diane Arbus, TaUoed Man a t a Carnival, Md. 1970 (Photo cropped and retouched by MOMA)-p.I44: ITT (Andreas Bader)-p. 1 l 5 : ITT (Ulrike Meinhof)-p.IS2-3: Trans­ editions-p.ISS: Drawing by a ghetto child (Courtesy Martine Barrat)-p. l S8 : Mapping by young "Schizophrenics" (Deligny)-p.163: General Motors. Express Highways (N. Y. Fair, 1939-40)-p. l 69: Arturo SChwartz-p.21 l : Jackson Pollock, The She� Wolf, 1943 (MOMA)p.215-19: Christopher Knowles. , . . - Next iSllte Schizo­ culture Vlt. Accond Aatonln an.. ., " DIe,. Cortel Michel Fo",*ult " � Jeny Grotow.k�" '.Ib _ , ,' , ....... D. ...I.. yyonnt ....r. ' Anti ...re. It will change your life.