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Author
Dr Sarah Curtis
Contact details
Institution
Art & Design
Monash College
Title
Was it Messianic time? : Aesthetic intervention and apocalyptic violence in Terri Bird’s
Recycling Fictions of Being.
Abstract
This paper explores dimensions of time in a work by an Australian artist, Terri Bird for a
Sculpture in Public Places Programme in the leafy and proudly artistic suburb of Eltham,
Victoria. It traces the artist’s process of creating an avant-garde intervention and how this
was received with a hostile response. It applies Walter Benjamin’s theory of time to argue
for a difference between the agency of aesthetic intention and the agency that brought
about the work’s destruction. It references the apocalyptic and the Messianic to
distinguish between a predictable repetitious paradigm of civilising progress and the
unpredictability of the artwork’s aesthetic agency. It identifies this mechanism with the
agency of commodity fetish in supporting the pathological fantasy of a narcissistic
subject. It calls for further distinction between apocalyptic time as the predictable
repetition of violence and the desire of civic power and Messianic time being the desire
for community.
Paper
What is the difference between aesthetic intervention and narcissistic violence and how
does this pertain to perceptions of time? This question surrounds the history of artworks
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made for public places and the public engagement with them. In rare cases the public
embraces the avant-garde artwork, transcending the gravitational pull of the iconoclastic
impulse of modernism towards an image of totalitarian authority. More often these works
are associated with the absolute desire of civic authority and felt as a violating
penetration of the body public. In some cases the public feel so violated that they take
legal means to remove the object. In other cases the public takes the law into its own
hands through acts of vandalism. But what about when the aesthetic intention of an
artwork invokes a civic authority to carry out an act of violence against an artwork: what
is this speaking for?
In the world of art, violence remains opaquely hidden in the sado-masochistic relation
between the impulse of corporate patronage and a serially hysteric desire of the artist to
escape from its control. Political integrity is continually absorbed by the obscene violence
of market forces, making an imperative to reveal a lack in the Other seem more urgent.
An example for this argument is given in an Australian programme for an Art in Public
Spaces that was run by Chris Marks, the Curator of Collections, for the Shire of
Nillumbik in the state of Victoria. It was paralleled by a protest that money for this
programme could be better expended on other purposes such as making a racing track for
BMX bike riding. The catalyst for this argument was the appearance of a work titled
Recycling Fictions of Being by Terri Bird. Following the graffiti and burning of this work,
the programme ceased.
Questions surround the anonymous destruction of this work and the subsequent diversion
of the shire funding. One of the most difficult to answer is did the artwork transcend the
desire of civic authority for which context it was made? As Andrew Benjamin stated in
his review of this event “only once a more nuanced sense of the public is taken on will
the risk of destruction begin to dissipate” (Benjamin 2003, 28). In the meantime, does
public artwork do no more than act as means for perpetrating the death baring fantasy of
the narcissistic subject? One way of answering this is provided by Walter Benjamin’s
concept of time as a historically determined materialist dimension. In this case,
Benjamin’s theory is applied to arrest the train of thought whereby the aesthetic
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intervention of Recycling Fictions of Being is overshadowed by a sadistic fascination
with the spectacle of a torture and crucifixion.
As Richard Wolin argued, Benjamin’s theory has often been “vitiated by the vulgar
materialist presuppositions that the use of technologically advanced means will have
unilaterally positive results for art” (Wolin 1994, 156). Yet, the impact of globalisation
through information technology makes it increasingly harder to understand how to avoid
this. According to Wolin, Benjamin envisages the capacity of “artists to transform the
apparatus in order to make them serviceable for progressive political goals” (Wolin 1994,
156). Does the aesthetic intention of Recycling Fictions of Being confirm Benjamin’s
imperative for an aesthetics of redemption and is this distinct from the mechanism of
vandalistic acts?
Benjamin’s theory connects mystic Judaic theology with Marxism. The problem with this
relation, as Theodor Adorno pointed out, was that it led him towards the “the reactionary
doctrines” of a “collective unconscious” taught by Jung and Klages” (Adorno 1977,
113). As Adorno states, “a mass ego exists only in earthquakes and catastrophes, while
otherwise objective surplus value prevails precisely through individual subjects and
against them” (Adorno 1997, 113). If going by the concept of a collective unconscious,
then the destruction of Recycling Fictions of Being could be interpreted as a collective
will and related to the single catastrophe of apocalyptic vision. Benjamin’s concept of the
Messianic time argues that this is not the only way to read this event. As Wolin
interpolates, the concept of an apocalypse is none other than reflection of a criminal
intent to obfuscate our knowledge of history (Wolin 1994, 207). Alternatively, the time of
community is “the straight gate through which the Messiah can enter” (Benjamin 1955,
266). This latter concept of Messianic time argues for an accentuated reading of the
temporal dimensions of Recycling Fictions of Being that distinguishes between the
materiality of the body politic and the fetish of violence.
In this light, Recycling Fictions of Being provides a contemporary template for
understanding Benjamin’s disagreement with the Fascistic sympathies of the Futurist
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artists. He proposed that their identification “expects war to supply the artistic
gratification of a sense perception that has been changed by technology” to the degree
that the first order of aesthetic pleasure is to witness the ultimate act of narcissism
(Benjamin 1955, 244). He contrasted the Futurists’ apocalyptic identification with the
machine aesthetic by an argument that “the past carries with it a temporal index by which
it refers to redemption” and this is based on “a secret agreement between past generations
and the present”(Benjamin 1955, 256). He interprets this as producing “a weak Messianic
power” that confirms “our coming was expected on earth” (Benjamin 1955, 256).
In the Australian context the capacity to remember the distant past is not formalised by
architectural monuments to archaic civilizations. In turn this lack of monumental history
may be seen as a “weak power” when compared to an illusion of wealth signified by the
commodity fetish. Alternatively, signifiers for another type of wealth can be found
throughout the Shire of Nillimbuk. This includes the motives of twentieth century
architects who were experimenting with environmentally sustainable mud-brick and the
utopian intentions of an Arts & Crafts community who repudiated the nineteenth century
industrial revolution. More fervent signifiers of this spirituality can be seen in the
prolificacy of trees and shrubs that symbolise a mythical connection with an Australia
that does not exist – the Terra Nullius of pre-white eighteenth century settlement. These
were also acted as signifiers in Terri Bird’s process for creating an aesthetic intervention.
Terri Bird’s Fiction of Being begs further investigation of the distinction between
apocalyptic and Messianic time. To begin with, the dialectical potential of the latter
pivoted on the choice of location for this work. Terri Bird sought out a place that could be
identified as a recluse from the penetrating gaze of town planning departments and
decided on park that consisted of undulating mounds of mown lawn surrounded by a ring
of trees fencing off the traffic. In the park she found what “a desire line” This was a
pathway made by pedestrians and bicyclists seeking a short cut between two streets on
either side of the town-planners’ regulating rectangular grid. It expressed how the desire
for freedom from an obsessional fixation with time is axiomatically articulated through
slightly anarchic deviations within a regulating grid. Terri Bird identified this “desire
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line” as an axis that would determine the form the sculpture would take. The imaginary
and symbolic dimensions of this construct were addressed by the artwork’s title.
Another determining characteristic of the location was that the park was named after
Alexander Knox, an architect who inaugurated a modernist approach to mud-brick
dwellings in this area. The irony of naming this site after an environmentalist is that the
park also covered over a former rubbish tip. Not only does this recall how modern
progress is based on silencing the past but also that this imperative for silence is
connected to a history of violent abuses. This civic veiling of the site created a precedent
for Terri Bird’s choice of material. Her choice of recycled plastic panels not only created
a provocation for the way in which this site had been beatified, but it also spoke for those
voices that were not recorded and the broken abused bodies that were deemed abject,
lying beneath the surface.
The finished object was geometrically rectangular and its dimensions were
300x1750x3650 mm. An implicit reference to a classical origin is given by the golden
colour of the plastic material. But an inherent iconoclasm can be seen in the opposition of
colour’s connotations of symbolic prestige and the low cost of the material. Its form
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accommodated a human body and therefore could be associated with a Vitruvian
emphasis on proportion as idealized in the Renaissance imago dei. Any historical
association with this eroticised male figure was veiled by the object’s puritanical
regularity and uniformity. In contrast with the Suprematist inclination to elevate the
object to the status of an Orthodox icon, Terri Bird intended for the object to be
positioned on a passively horizontal axis. This determined that the spectator was in a
dominant relation to the object while the sadistic implication of this positioning was dealt
with by elevating the object so that hovered slightly above the ground. This transcendent
aspect enabled the traveller to occupy the position of the melancholic tourist philosopher
and drink in the scenery. Rather than impose the spectator with pre-digested symbols and
identifications, this work invited the subject who engaged with it to take in the inevitable
commemorating aspect of the natural features and their capacity to symbolise a past that
has yet to be written.
The aesthetic intervention also entailed placing the object on the path’s midway point. In
order to engage with its material and symbolic properties, one had to and walk for some
time before encountering it. This gave emphasis to an imaginary alleviation from
surveillance and provided the opportunity for the object to symbolise a non-civic
temporality that was nether the less cultural and particular for the people who inhabited
this environment. The introduction of this form radically altered the experience for the
people who were used to taking this route and thinking in certain patterns. Because it was
positioning on the mound of the hill, this increased the potential of the object to function
as a station in a pilgrimage and to provide a signifier for life’s purpose. For the elderly
and the young it could be identified as an extension of a daily life that was not regulated
by a gruelling linear pace but is permitted to travel elliptically and to appreciate the
caveats. For those who were propelled by the schedule of measuring time in financial
terms, the object could be identified as fitting into a neatly rationalised agenda for the
common good and a comforting reminder that leisure is a fiscally legitimate activity.
Not only did the artwork create a signifying frame for an everyday transport between the
symbolic and imaginary, but it also by necessity created a precedent for invoking the real.
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For those who were unable to identify the object as symbolically confirming the
existence of a subject, this object could have triggered the unbearable anxiety of being
absorbed by the desire of an all-consuming fantasm. A connection between this form of
psychopathology and the destruction of the sculpture seems unlikely. This is because the
process of its destruction can be understood in relation to the atavistic subjectivity of
symbolic consumerism. The imperative to undertake an organized action to defile the
object can be entertained around the primacy of the commodity fetish in creating an
illusion of community.
While the creation of the short cut can be related to the history of petit crime, its cutting
through the grassy field can be related to the desire of capitalism via the mechanism of
fetish. The appearance of this sculptural object symbolised a limit to an oceanic fantasy
whereby the subject seeks gratification through fetish. It created an irritant for the subject
who was more focused on private property than the potential of community with the
herbaceous terrain. It depleted the fantasy of oceanic unity with global consumer culture
by symbolising that not everything in life is commensurable with economic opportunity.
Therefore the object may have disturbed unconscious resistances and invoked excitations
in un-sublimated arenas. But was it asking to be degraded and thereby fulfilling an
unconsummated relationship with the body politic through the violence that was
perpetrated on it?
The non-representational aspect of the sculpture increased the potential for engagement
with the imaginary. It introduced a limit or a cut into the mind of the passenger who had
been gratified by the expediency of the short cut and the comfort of fetish. This draws
attention to that which Benjamin termed the aura of the bourgeois and how its investment
in the commodity fetish serves as a primary form of identification. In this instance the
bourgeois aura can be identified with the imperative of private wealth as opposed to the
wealth of community. Far from being united behind the auspices of a unifying civic
power, the debate that followed the installation of Recycling Fictions of Being argues that
the desire for private and wealth and the wealth of community are dialectical. It speaks
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for a permanent dissymmetry of desire that is both interminably predictable and
incessantly different.
This difference is reflected between those who identified the commodity fetish as a
signifier of the common good and those who identified Eltham as a haven for the arts.
The desire of the former was implicit in the suggestion that Recycling Fictions of Being
was asking to be violated and furthermore that such an act might be permissible. The
desire of the latter was cut short by the impact of the former.
This began with, heated letters written to the editor in The Diamond Valley Leader
(March 9th 2003). A sympathetic response was expressed in an article entitled “Is it the
True Spirit of Eltham?” Here, one resident complained that media bias was creating a
lynch mob mentality that suited the councillors who wanted to cut the art’s budget.
Another sardonically suggested that a more accurate symbol of the community could
have been “a model of a four wheel drive, bright red shiny with the Spirit of Eltham
written on the side (Diamond Valley Leader, March 23rd 2003).
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Unabashed, an anti-sympathetic journalist wrote an article that was obviously inviting the
public to deface the sculpture. The author suggested how Recycling Fictions of Being was
being more commonly referred to as “The Big Yellow Foam Mattress” and noted that the
Lord Mayor had reservations about its merit. It proposed that some members of the
public had predicted that the sculpture would become “a graffiti vandals’ paradise”
(Diamond Valley Leader, April 9th 2003).
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A further sequential article in this spectacle of media was entitled “Ratepayers Money
Frittered Away”. This was entirely compromised of angry letters from rate-payers where
the words “disgusting” and “waste” are accompanied by a complaint against the Shire’s
failure to provide a bike racing track. It presented visual evidence that the prophesy of the
sculpture being vandalised had indeed come to pass. The image was accompanied by a
caption reading “fears the $20.000 sculpture would be attacked by graffiti vandals were
realised last week” and it depicted an image of the object with graffiti on it.
At first glance the graffiti seems to imitate the spray painted style developed by marginal
adolescents who live in American ghettoes. On further investigation, it reflects the
particular larrikin humour of an Australian male adult having a beer in a pub. Where as
the function of American graffiti is related to the purposefulness of abstraction, in this
case the graffiti incorporates a figurative and allegorical aspect that can be related to the
fetish of consumerism. By spraying circles and the word ‘Coon’ the graffiti artists have
attempted to relate the sculpture to block of processed cheddar cheese (Diamond Valley
Leader, April 16th 2003). This not only suggests the problem with understanding the
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history of modernist abstraction but also the problem of understanding the intentions of
Pop art.
In less than a week after it was painted in this way the sculpture was covered with a
flammable liquid and burnt. This final act was of desecration was undoubtedly a
development upon the previous act of defamation and indicates the logical necessity of
systematic profanity. In keeping with a militant strategy, it was important to present an
image of subordination before carrying out the final act.
Since Recycling Fictions of Being was a commissioned work it never belonged to any
other subject than the subject of the Nillumbik community and its desire to create a
monument for its identity. Once made, the conservation of the object was the
responsibility of the community who owned it. In light of this contract, any singular
attempt to mutilate the object can be interpreted as an act that was willed within the
community’s political caucus. Rather than a group of unruly adolescents, the serial way
in which the sculpture was attacked through the agency of permissive media, suggests an
organized connection between the desire for bureaucratic control and the imperative of
consumerism.
The sequence, in which the sculptural object was first graffitied and then burnt, seemed to
justify the end of a civic contract. Through systematic acts of violence the object was
denuded of whatever bourgeois aura and hence the civic responsibility to guarantee its
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conservation. After it was burnt the Shire made a decision to de-accession Recycling
Fictions of Being and to cease funding for the Art in Public Places programme at the
same time. Some of the ground lost by those who had invested in the project was
regained through a commemorative plaque laid down on this spot for the next generation
to read.
Ironically, the placement of Recycling Fictions of Being on a former rubbish tip had the
effect of drawing out subterranean and abject affect from the body politic. Its virginal
non-representational and geometric uniformity created a catalyst for a debate over the
purpose and function of symbols and what constitutes an identity. Its conservational
gesture towards use of recycled materials was matched by a perversely sadistic attitude
towards culturally prescribed “nature”. This sadistic origin is traceable the interpretation
of the work’s horizontal position with an invitation to be ravished and plundered. But
does this mean that a narcissistic desire leading towards self-destruction was encoded in
Recycling Fictions of Being: and does the cathartic image of the works’ destruction
ultimately silence the aesthetic intervention of this work?
Denuded of its civic aura, the archival property of this work has now entered into a pre-
industrialised landscape of folklore and oral tradition. Although it no longer exists as a
monument of civic pride it still exists, as far as this community is concerned, through the
oral tradition of gossip and rumour. We rely on these illegitimate discourses to
communicate that which the hegemonic programme of modern progress oppresses. We
rely on them to remember the lives on which our existence in the present is made
possible. The destruction of the work was predictable because of the repetitious nature of
neurotic identification with commodity fetish. However, the work itself was incontestably
unpredictable and this is important to distinguish. As Wolin argues on behalf of
Benjamin:
… to act consistently would be tantamount to an avowal of belief in the
meaningfulness of profane ends, a compromise that is fatal from a Messianic point of
view. Whereas if one acts radically, from one’s innermost convictions, there is still the
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distant infinitesimal hope that one is somehow hastening the advent of the Messianic
age (Wolin 1994, 117).
Benjamin’s concept of a Messianic age argues for a community that is formed around a
different type of responsibility than that which is grounded upon the apocalyptically
focused impulse of capitalist consumerism. As Terri Bird’s Recycling Fictions of Being
attests, this requires taking aesthetic risks. While it may startle and awake a devouring
desire that is predictably universal and profane, it also creates an opportunity for that
which the community can nominate to be particular and therefore sacred.
Works cited
Adorno, Theodor, 1977. Aesthetics and Politics. trans. R. Taylor London: New Left
Books.
Benjamin, Andrew, 2003. “Vandalizing Objects, Destroying Art: Notes on Terri
Bird’s
Recycling Fictions of Being.” Art Monthly, No. 163 September 28-9.
Benjamin, Walter, 1955. Illumination. trans. Harry Zohn ed. Hannah Arendt. New
York:
Harcourt, Brace and World.
Wolin, Richard, 1994. Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetics of Redemption. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Diamond Valley Leader. 2003. “Ratepayer Money Frittered Away’ April 16:10.
Diamond Valley Leader. 2003. “Ratepayer Money Frittered Away’ April 2: 3.
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