R. Krauss Video- The Aesthetics Of Narcissism 4u4t48

Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism Author(s): Rosalind Krauss Reviewed work(s): Source: October, Vol. 1 (Spring, 1976), pp. 50-64 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778507 . Accessed: 28/10/2012 09:30 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/.jsp

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Video: The Aestheticsof Narcissism

ROSALIND KRAUSS

It was a commonplace of criticismin the 1960s thata strictapplication of allowed a painter"to point to thecenterof thecanvas" and, in so doing, symmetry to invoketheinternalstructure of thepicture-object. Thus "pointingto thecenter" was made to serveas one of themanyblocksin thatintricately constructedarch by which the criticismof the last decade sought to connectart to ethicsthroughthe "aestheticsofacknowledgement."But whatdoes it mean to point to thecenterofa t.v.screen? In a way thatis surelyconditionedby theattitudesof Pop Art,artists'video is largelyinvolved in parodying the critical of abstraction.Thus when Vito Acconci makes a video tape called Centers(1971), what he does is literalizethe criticalnotionof 'pointing'byfilminghimselfpointingto thecenterofa television monitor,a gesturehe sustains forthe 20-minuterunning timeof the work. The parodisticqualityofAcconci's gesture,withitsobvious debttoDuchampian irony, is clearlyintendedto disruptand dispense with an entirecriticaltradition.It is meant to rendernonsensicala criticalengagementwith theformalpropertiesofa work,or indeed,a genreof works-such as 'video'. The kind of criticismCenters attacksis obviouslyone thattakesseriouslytheformalqualities ofa work,or triesto assay the particularlogic of a given medium. And yet,by its verymis-en-scene, Centerstypifies thestructuralcharacteristics of thevideo medium.For Centerswas made by Acconci's using the video monitoras a mirror.As we look at the artist arm and forefinger towardsthecenterof thescreen sightingalong his outstretched we are watching,what we see is a sustainedtautology:a line ofsightthatbeginsat Acconci'splane of vision and ends at theeyesof his projecteddouble. In thatimage of self-regardis configureda narcissismso endemic to worksof video thatI find myselfwantingto generalizeit as theconditionoftheentiregenre.Yet,whatwould it mean to say, "The medium of video is narcissism?" For one thing,thatremarktendsto open up a riftbetweenthenatureofvideo and thatof theothervisual arts.Because thatstatementdescribesa psychological ratherthan a physical condition; and while we are accustomed to thinkingof psychological states as the possible subject of works of art, we do not thinkof VitoAcconci.Centers.1971.(Photo:KathyDillon.)

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psychology as constitutingtheir medium. Rather, the medium of painting, sculptureor filmhas much more to do withtheobjective,materialfactorsspecificto a particularform:pigment-bearingsurfaces;matterextendedthroughspace; light projected througha moving stripof celluloid. That is, the notion of a medium contains the concept of an object-state,separate from the artist'sown being, throughwhich his intentionsmust. Video depends-in order foranythingto be experiencedat all-on a set of physical mechanisms.So perhaps it would be easiest to say thatthisapparatusboth at its present and futurelevels of technology-comprises the television medium,and leave it at that.Yet with thesubjectofvideo, theease ofdefiningit in of its machinerydoes not seem to coincide with accuracy; and my own experienceof video keeps urgingme towardsthepsychologicalmodel. Everydayspeech contains an example of the word 'medium' used in a psychologicalsense; theuncommon terrainforthatcommon-enoughusage is the and communication worldofparapsychology:telepathy, extra-sensory-perception, with an after-life,for which people with certain kinds of psychic powers are understood to be Mediums. Whetheror not we give credence to the fact of mediumisticexperience,we understandthereferents forthelanguage thatdescribes it. We know,forinstance,thatconfigured withintheparapsychologicalsenseofthe word 'medium' is theimage of a human receiver(and sender)of communications arising froman invisible source. Further,this termcontains the notion that the human conduit exists in a particular relation to the message, which is one of temporal concurrance.Thus, when Freud lectureson the phenomenon of telepathic dreams,he tells his audience thatthefactinsistedupon by reportsof such mattersis that the dreams occur at the same time as the actual (but invariably distant)event. Now these are the two featuresof the everydayuse of 'medium' that are suggestivefora discussionof video: the simultaneousreceptionand projectionof an image; and the human psyche used as a conduit. Because most of the work producedovertheveryshortspan of video art'sexistencehas used thehuman body as its centralinstrument.In thecase of workon tape thishas mostoftenbeen the In thecase ofvideo installations,it has usually been bodyof theartist-practitioner. thebodyof therespondingviewer.And no matterwhose bodyhas been selectedfor theoccasion, thereis a further conditionwhich is always present.Unlike theother visual arts, video is capable of recordingand transmittingat the same timeas it werecenteredbetweentwo producinginstant.The body is therefore machines thatare theopening and closing ofa parenthesis.The first of theseis the camera;thesecondis themonitor,whichre-projectstheperformer's imagewiththe immediacyof a mirror. The effects of thiscenteringare multiple.And nowhereare theymoreclearly named than in a tape made by Richard Serra,with thehelp of Nancy Holt, who made herselfitswilling and eloquent subject.The tape is called Boomerang(1974), and itssituationis a recordingstudioin whichHolt sitsin a tightlyframedclose-up

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wearinga technician'sheadset.As Holt beginsto talkherwordsare fedback to her throughtheearphonesshe wears. Because theapparatus is attachedto a recording thereis a slightdelay(ofless thana second)betweenheractual locution instrument, and theaudio-to which she is forcedto listen.For the tenminutesof the with tape,Holt describeshersituation.She speaksoftheway theinterferes hernormal thoughtprocessand of theconfusioncaused bythelack ofsynchronism betweenher speech and what she hearsof it. "Sometimes,"she says,"I findI can't partcome backand I forgetthesecondpart,or quite saya wordbecause I heara first is in new head stimulated a direction my by thefirsthalfof theword." As we hear Holt speak and listento thatdelayedvoice echoing in herears,we are witnessto an extraordinary image ofdistraction.Because theaudio delay keeps coincidingwithherselfas a subject. hypostatizingherwords,she has greatdifficulty It is a situation, she says, that "puts a distance between the words and their apprehension-their comprehension,"a situationthatis "like a mirror-reflection ... so that I am surroundedby me and my mind surroundsme ... thereis no escape." The prison Holt both describesand enacts,fromwhich thereis no escape, could be called the prison of a collapsed present,thatis, a presenttimewhich is completelyseveredfroma sense of its own past. We get some feelingforwhat it is like to be stuckin thatpresentwhen Holt at one pointsays,"I'm throwingthings out in theworldand theyare boomerangingback . . boomeranging... erangingof a single word-and ing . .. anginging." Through thatdistractedreverberation even formsan image of what it is like to be totallycut-off fromword-fragment--there history,even,in thiscase, theimmediatehistoryof thesentenceone has just spoken. Anotherword forthathistoryfromwhich Holt feelsherselfto be disconnectedis 'text'. Most conventionalperformers are of course enactingor interpreting a text, whetherthatis a fixedchoreography,a writtenscript,a musical score,or a sketchy set of notes around which to improvise.By the veryfactof thatrelationship,the performanceties itself to the fact of something that existed before the given moment.Most immediately,thissenseof somethinghaving come beforerefersto thespecifictextfortheperformanceat hand. But in a largerway it evokesthemore generalhistoricalrelationshipbetweena specifictextand thehistoryconstructed by all the textsof a given genre.Independentof thegesturemade withinthepresent, thislargerhistoryis thesourceof meaningforthatgesture.WhatHolt is describing in Boomerang is a situationin which theaction of themirror-reflection (which is auditoryin thiscase) seversher froma sense of text:fromthe priorwordsshe has spoken; fromtheway language connectsher both to herown past and to a world of objects. What she comes to is a space where,as she says, "I am surrounded by me." to Self-encapsulation-thebodyor psycheas itsown surround-is everywhere be foundin thecorpusof video art.Acconci's Centersis one instance,anotheris his Air Time of 1973. In Air Time Acconci sitsbetweenthevideo camera and a large

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witha minuteshe addresseshis own reflection mirrorwhich he faces.For thirty-five are and in the which "I" "you"-although they presumedto be monologue markersof theautonomous interlover-are an absent and to himself referring coursebetweenAcconciand his own image. Both Centersand AirTime constructa The response situationof spatial closure,promotinga conditionofself-reflection. of the performeris to a continually renewed image of himself.This image, supplantingtheconsciousnessofanythingpriorto it,becomestheunchangingtext he is commitedto the textof of the performer.Skeweredon his own reflection, ofthissituationis,like the the concommitant So that temporal image. perpetuating of Boomerang,thesenseof a collapsed present. echo-effect Bruce Nauman's tapes are another example of the double effectof the VitoAcconci.AirTime.1973.

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monitor.In Revolving Upside Down (1968), Nauman films performance-for-the himselfthrougha camera thathas been rotatedso thattheflooron whichhe stands is at the top of the screen.For sixtyverylong minutes,Nauman slowly moves, turningon one foot,fromthedepthsof his studioforwardtowardsthemonitorand thenback again, repeatingthisactivityuntil the tape runs out. In Lynda Benglis's Now, there is a similar leveling out of the effectsof temporality.The tape is of Benglis's head in profile,performingagainst the backdrop of a large monitoron which an earliertape of herselfdoing the same one 'live' the actions,but reversedleftand right,is beingreplayed.The twoprofiles, othertaped, move in mirroredsynchronywith one another.As theydo, Benglis's two profilesperforman auto-eroticcoupling, which, because it is being recorded, becomes the background for another generation of the same activity. Through this spiral of infiniteregress,as the face mergeswith the double and triplere-projectionsof itselfmergingwith itself,Benglis's voice is heard either issuing thecommand "Now!" or asking "Is it now?" Clearly,Benglisis using the word "now" to underlinetheambiguityof temporalreference:we realize thatwe do not know whetherthe sound of thevoice is coming fromthelive or the taped source, and if fromthe latter,which level of taping. Justas we also realize that because of theactivityofreplayingthepast generations,all layersof the "now" are equally present. But what is farmore arrestingin Now than thetechnologicalbanalityof the question "which 'now' is intended?"is theway thetape enactsa collapsed present time. In that insistenceit connects itselfto the tapes by Nauman and Acconci alreadydescribed,and ultimatelyto Boomerang. In all theseexamples thenature of video performanceis specifiedas an activityof bracketingout the textand The result of this substitutionis the substitutingfor it the mirror-reflection. of a self understood to have no presentation past, and as well, no connectionwith that are external it. to For the double that appears on the monitor any objects cannot be called a trueexternalobject. Ratherit is a displacementof theselfwhich has theeffect-asHolt's voice has in Boomerang--oftransforming theperformer's subjectivityinto another,mirror,object. It is at this point thatone might want to go back to the propositionwith which thisargumentbegan, and raise a particularobjection. Even ifit is agreed, one mightask, thatthemedium of video art is thepsychologicalconditionof the selfsplit and doubled by themirror-reflection of synchronous,how does thatentail a 'rift'betweenvideo and theotherarts?Isn't it rathera case of video's using a new techniqueto achieve continuitywith themodernistintentionsof the restof the visual media? Specifically,isn't the mirror-reflection a varianton the reflexivemode in which contemporarypainting,sculptureand filmhave successively entrenchedthemselves?Implicit in this question is the idea that autoreflectionand reflexivenessrefer to the same thing-that both are cases of consciousness doubling back upon itself in order to performand portraya separation between formsof art and theircontents,between the proceduresof

Lynda Benglis. Now. 1973.

thought and their objects.' In its simplest form this question would be the following:Aside fromtheirdivergenttechnologies,what is thedifference, really, betweenVito Acconci's Centersand JasperJohn'sAmericanFlag? is a is total.Reflection, when it is a case ofmirroring, Answer:The difference is a strategyto achieve a while reflexiveness move towardan externalsymmetry; radical asymmetry, fromwithin.In his AmericanFlag, Johnsuses thesynonomy betweenan image (the flag)and its ground (the limitsof the picturesurface)to unbalance therelationshipbetweenthe 'picture'and 'painting'. By forcing us to see the actual wall on which the canvas hangs as the backgroundfor the pictorial object as-a-whole, Johns drivesa wedge between two typesof figure/ groundrelationships:theone thatis internalto theimage; and theone thatworks of a flat, from without to definethis object as Painting. The figure/ground bounded surface hung against a wall is isolated as a primary,categorical condition, within which the of the process of painting are given. The category'Painting' is establishedas an object (or a text)whose subjectbecomes this particularpainting-American Flag. The flagis thus both the object of the picture,and the subject of a more general object (Painting) to which American is preciselythisfracture into twocategoripoint. Reflexiveness Flag can reflexively entitieswhich can elucidateone anotherinsofaras theirspearatecally different ness is maintained. on the otherhand, implies the vanquishing of separateMirror-reflection, ness. Its inherentmovementis towardfusion.The selfand itsreflected imageare of is a mode ofappropriation,of course literallyseparate.But theagencyofreflection For example,thiscompletelyerroneousequation allows Max Kozloffto writethatnarcissismis 1. modernart." See, "Pygmalion "the emotional correlateof the intellectualbasis behind self-reflexive XIV (November1975),37. Reversed,"Artforum,

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betweensubjectand object. Facing mirrors illusionisticallyerasing the difference on opposite walls squeeze out the real space between them. When we look at Centerswe see Acconci sightingalong his arm to the centerof the screenwe are watching. But latentin this set-upis the monitorthat he is, himself,looking at. There is no way forus to see Centerswithoutreading thatsustainedconnection betweentheartistand his double. So forus as forAcconci,video is a processwhich allows thesetwo to fuse. of modernistart is a dkdoublementor One could say thatif thereflexiveness doubling back in orderto locate the object (and thus the objectiveconditionsof of absolute is a process of one's experience), the mirror-reflection bracketingout the object. This is why it seems inappropriate to speak of a physical medium in relation to video. For the object (the electronicequipment and its capabilities) has become merelyan appurtenance.And instead,video's real medium is a psychological situation, the veryof which are to withdraw attentionfroman externalobject-an Other-and investit in theSelf.Therefore, it is not just any psychological condition one is speaking of. Rather it is the condition of someone who has, in Freud's words, "abandoned the investmentof object-libidointoego-libido." And thatis the objectswith libido and transformed specificcondition of narcissism. By making thisconnection,then,one can recasttheopposition betweenthe and reflexive, into the of the psychoanalytiroject. Because it is reflective there,too, in thedrama of the couched subject,thatthenarcissisticre-projection of a frozenself is pitted against the analytic (or reflexive)mode.2 One findsa particularlyusefuldiscriptionof thatstrugglein the writingof Jacques Lacan. In The Language of theSelf Lacan begins by characterizingthespace of the theraputictransactionas an extraordinaryvoid created by the silence of the analyst. Into this void the patientprojectsthe monologue of his own recitation, which Lacan calls "the monumental constructof his narcissism." Using this monologue to explain himselfand his situation to his silentlistener,thepatient And thisfrustration, Lacan charges, begins to experiencea verydeep frustration. although it is initially thoughtto be provokedby the maddening silence of the analyst,is eventuallydiscoveredto have anothersource: Is it not rathera matterof a frustrationinherentin the very discourse of the subject? Does the subject not become engaged in an ever-growing dispossessionof thatbeing of his, concerningwhich-by Freud's pessimism about the prospectsof treatingthe narcissisticcharacteris based on his 2. experienceof thenarcissist'sinherentinabilityto enterinto theanalyticsituation:"Experienceshows that persons sufferingfrom the narcissisticneuroses have no capacity for transference, or only insufficient remnantsof it.They turnfromthephysician,not in hostility,but in indifference. Therefore theyare not to be influencedby him; what he saysleaves themcold, makesno impressionon them,and thereforethe process of cure which can be carried through with others, the revivificationof the with pathogenicconflictand theovercomingof theresistancedue to therepressions,cannotbe effected them.They remainas theyare." Sigmund Freud,A GeneralIntroductiontoPsychoanalysis,trans.Joan Rivere,New York,Permabooks,1953,p. 455.

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dint of sincere portraitswhich leave its idea no less incoherent,of rectifications which do not succeed in freeingits essence,of staysand of narcissistic defenseswhich do not preventhis statuefromtottering, embraceswhich become like a puffof air in animatingit-he ends up by recognizingthat this being has neverbeen anythingmore than his constructin the Imaginaryand that thisconstructdisappoints all his certitudes?For in this labor which he undertakesto reconstructthis constructforanother,he findsagain thefundamentalalienation which made him constructit like anotherone, and which has always destined it to be strippedfromhim by another.3 What thepatientcomes to see is thatthis'self'of his is a projectedobject,and that his frustrationis due to his own capture by this object with which he can neverreallycoincide. Further,this "statue" which he has made and in which he believesis thebasis forhis "staticstate,"fortheconstantly"renewedstatusof his alienation." Narcissismis characterized,then,as the unchanging condition of a perpetual frustration.4 The processof analysis is one of breakingthe hold of thisfascinationwith the mirror;and in orderto do so thepatientcomes to see thedistinctionbetween his lived subjectivityand thefantasyprojectionsofhimselfas object. "In orderfor us to come back to a more dialectical view of the analytic experience," Lacan writes, "I would say that the analysis consists preciselyin distinguishingthe person lyingon the analysts'scouch fromthe person who is speaking. With the person listening[theanalyst],thatmakes threepersonspresentin the analytical situation,among whom it is the rule that the question ... be put: Whereis the moi of the subject?"5 The analytic project is then one in which the patient disengages from the "statue" of his reflectedself, and through a method of rediscoversthe real time of his own history.He exchanges the reflexiveness, atemporalityof repetitionforthe temporalityof change. If psychoanalysisunderstandsthatthepatientis engaged in a recoveryof his being in of its real history,modernismhas understoodthattheartistlocates his own expressivenessthrough a discoveryof the objective conditions of his mediumand theirhistory.That is, theverypossibilitiesoffindinghis subjectivity necessitatethattheartistrecognizethematerialand historicalindependenceofan externalobject (or medium). In distinctionto this,thecoil ofvideo seemsto be theinstrument of 3. Jacques Lacan, The Language of theSelf,trans.AnthonyWilden,New York,Delta, 1968.p. 11. 4. Lacan pointsto thefactthatevenwhen "thesubjectmakeshimselfan Explaining thisfrustration, object by strikinga pose beforethe mirror,he could not possibly be satisfiedwith it, since even ifhe achievedhis mostperfectlikenessin thatimage,it would stillbe thepleasureof theotherthathe would cause to be recognizedin it." Ibid., p. 12. 5. Ibid., p. 100.Althoughmoi translatesas 'ego', Wildenhas presumablyretainedtheFrenchherein orderto suggesttherelationshipbetweenthedifferent ordersof theselfby theimplictcontrastbetween moi and je.

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a double repression:forthroughit consciousnessof temporalityand of separation between subject and object are simultaneouslysubmerged.The result of this submergenceis, for the maker and the viewer of most video-art,a kind of weightlessfall throughthe suspended space of narcissism. There are, of course,a complex set of answers to thequestion of whyvideo has attracteda growing set of practitionersand collectors.These answerswould involvean analysisof everythingfromtheproblemofnarcissismwithinthewider contextof our culture,to the specificinner workingsof the presentart-market. Although I would like to postpone thatanalysis fora futureessay,I do wish to make one connectionhere.And thatis betweentheinstitutionof a selfformedby video and the real situation thatexistsin the artworldfromwhich the makers of video come. In the last fifteenyears that world has been deeply and disasterouslyaffectedby its relation to mass-media. That an artist's work be published, reproducedand disseminatedthroughthe media has become, forthe generationthat has maturedin the course of the last decade, virtuallythe only means of ingits existence as art. The demand for instant replay in the media-in fact the creation of work that literallydoes not exist outside of that replay,as is trueof conceptual art and its netherside, bodyart-finds itsobvious correlativein an aestheticmode by which theselfis createdthroughtheelectronic device of . There exist,however,threephenomenawithinthecorpus ofvideo artwhich run counterto what I have been sayingso far.Or at leastare somewhattangential to it. They are: 1) tapes thatexploit themediumin orderto criticizeit fromwithin; 2) tapes thatrepresenta physicalassault on thevideo mechanismin orderto break out of its psychological hold; and 3) installationformsof video which use the medium as a sub-species of painting or sculpture. The firstis representedby Richard Serra's Boomerang. The second can be exemplifiedby Joan Jonas's VerticalRoll. And the thirdis limitedto certainof theinstallationworksof Bruce Nauman and PeterCampus, particularlyCampus's two companion pieces mem and dor. I have alreadydescribedhow narcissismis enactedin Boomerang.But what separates it from,say, Benglis's Now, is the critical distance it maintains on its own subject.This is primarilydue to thefactthatSerraemploysaudio ratherthan visual .Because of this theangle of vision we takeon thesubjectdoes not coincide with theclosed circuitof Holt's situation,but looks onto it fromoutside. Further, the narcissisticcondition is given through the cerebratedform of language, which opens simultaneouslyonto theplane ofexpressionand theplane of criticalreflexiveness. Serra'sseparationfromthesubjectofBoomerang,his position Significantly, outside it, promotesan attitude toward time that is different frommany other works of video. The tape's brevity-it is ten minutes long-is itselfrelated to discourse:to how long it takesto shape and develop an argument;and how long it takes for its receiverto get the 'point'. Latent within the opening situation of

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JoanJonas.VerticalRoll. 1972.

Boomerangis its own conclusion; when thatis reached,it stops. VerticalRoll is anothercase wheretimehas been forcedto enterthe video situation,and wherethattimeis understoodas a propulsiontowardsan end. In this workaccess to a senseof timehas come fromfoulingthestabilityof theprojected thefrequenciesof thesignals on cameraand monitor. image by de-synchronizing The rhythmicroll of theimage,as thebottomof itsframescans upward tohit the top of the screen,causes a sense of decompositionthatseemsto workagainst the grainof those525 linesofwhichthevideopictureis made. Becauseone recognizesit as intended,theverticalroll appears as theagencyofa will thatrunscounterto an of itsconstantwiping away electronicallystabilizedcondition.Through theeffect relationto thevideo gridand theground of theimage,one has a senseof a reflexive or forwhat happens to theimage. Out of this is born the subjectof VerticalRoll, which visualizestimeas the course of a continuous dissolve throughspace. In it a sequence of images and actionsareseenfromdifferent positions-both in ofthecamera'sdistanceand itsorientationto a horizontalground.Withtheordinarygrammarofbothfilmand eitherbycameramovement(in which video theseshiftswould have to be ed

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thezoom is includedas one possibility)or bycutting.Andwhile itis truethatJonas has had to use thesetechniquesin making VerticalRoll, theconstantsweep of the image rendersthesemovementsinvisible.That is, the grammarof the camera is erodedby thedislocatinggrip of theroll. As I have said, theillusion thiscreatesis one of a continuous dissolve throughtimeand space. The monitor,as an instrument,seemsto be windingintoitselfa ribbonofexperience,likea fishingline being takenup upon a reel,or like magentictapebeingwound upon a spool. The motion of continuousdissolvebecomes,then,a metaphorforthephysicalrealitynot only ofthescan-linesofthevideoraster,butofthephysicalrealityofthetapedeck,whose reelsobjectifya finiteamount of time. Earlier,I describedtheparadigmsituationofvideoas a bodycenteredbetween the parenthesisof camera and monitor. Due to VerticalRoll's visual reference throughthe monitor'saction to the physical realityof the tape, one side of this parenthesisis made more active than the other.The monitorside of the double bracketbecomesa reel throughwhichone feelsprefigured theimminenceofa goal or terminusfor the motion. That end is reached when Jonas, who has been performingtheactions recordedon the tape, fromwithinthecoils of thecamera/ monitorcircuit,breaksthroughtheparentheticalclosureof thesituation to face the camera directly-withoutthe agencyof the monitor'srolling image. If it is thepaired movementof thevideo scan and thetape-reelthatis isolated as a physical object in Vertical Roll, it is the stasis of the wall-plane that is objectifiedin Campus's mem and dor. In both of the Campus works thereis a triangularrelationshipcreatedbetween:1) a video camera,2) an instrumentthat will projectthelive camera image onto thesurfaceof a wall (at life-and over-lifesize), and 3) thewall itself.The viewer'sexperienceof theworksis thesum of the cumulative positions his body assumes within the vectorsformedby these three elements.When he standsoutside the triangularfieldof theworks,theviewersees nothingbut thelarge,luminous plane ofone ofthewalls in a darkenedroom.Only when he movesinto therangeof thecamera is he able to realizean image (his own) projected onto the wall's pictorial field.However, the conditions of seeing that image are ratherspecial in both mem and dor. In the latterthe camera is placed in the hallway leading to the room that containstheprojector.Inside theroom,thevieweris out of therangeof thecamera and therefore nothingappears on thewall-surface.It is onlyas he leaves theroom, or ratheris poised at the threshholdof the doorway that he is both illumined enough and farenough into thefocal range of thecamera to as an image. Since thatimage projectsonto theverywall throughwhich thedoorwayleads, the viewer'srelation to his own image must be totallyperipheral;he is himselfin a plane thatis not only parallel to theplane of the illusion, but continuouswithit. His body is thereforeboth the substanceof the image and, as well, the slightly displaced substanceof theplane onto which theimage is projected. In memboth cameraand projectorare toone side of thewall-plane,stationed in such a way that the range of the camera encomesa verythincorridor-like

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slice of space thatis parallel to, and almost fusedwith,theilluminedwall. Due to this,the viewermust be practicallyup against thewall in orderto .As he moves farenough away fromthewall in orderto be able to see himself,theimage blurs and distorts,but if he moves near enough to place himselfin focus,he has formedsuch closure with the forthe image thathe cannot reallysee it. Thereforein mem,as in dor, thebodyof theviewerbecomesphysicallyidentified with thewall-plane as the 'place' of theimage. There is a sensein whichwe could saythatthesetwoworksbyCampus simply take the live of camera and monitor,which existedforthe video artist while taping in his studio, and recreateit for the ordinaryvisitorto a gallery. However,mem and dor are not thatsimple. Because built into theirsituationare twokindsof invisibility:theviewer'spresenceto thewall in which he is himselfan absence; and his relative absence from a view of the wall which becomes the condition forhis projectedpresenceupon its surface. Campus's pieces acknowledgetheverypowerfulnarcissismthatpropels the viewerof theseworksforwardand backwardin frontof themuralizedfield.And, throughthe movementof his own body,his neck craningand head turning,the vieweris forcedto recognizethismotiveas well. But theconditionof theseworksis to acknowledgeas separatethetwosurfaceson which theimage is held-the one the viewer'sbody,theotherthewall-and to make themas absolutelydistinct. It is in thisdistinctionthatthewall-surface--the pictorialsurface-is understoodas an absolute Other,as partof theworldofobjectsexternalto theself.Further,itis to specifythatthemode of projectingoneselfonto thatsurfaceentailsrecognizingall theways thatone does not coincide with it. There is, of course,a historyof theartofthelastfifteen yearsintowhichworks like mem and dor insertthemselves,although it is one about which littlehas been written.That historyinvolvestheactivitiesof certainartistswho have made work which conflatespsychologisticand formalmeans to achieve veryparticularends. The artof RobertRauschenbergis a case in point. His work,in bringingtogether groupingsof real objectsand foundimagesand suspendingthemwithinthestatic matrixof a pictorialfield,attemptstoconvertthatfieldintosomethingwe could call theplane of memory.In so doing,thestatiictorialfieldis bothpsychologizedand temporallydistended.I have arguedelsewhere,6thattheimpulse behindthismove arose fromquestions that have to do with commodity-fetishism. Rauschenberg, among manyotherartists,has been workingagainsta situationin whichpainting and sculpturehave been absorbedwithina luxurymarket-absorbedso totallythat theircontenthas been deeply conditioned by their status as fetish-prizes to be collected,and therebyconsumed. In response,Rauschenberg'sartassertsanother, alternative,relationshipbetween the work of art and its viewer.And to do this Rauschenberghas had recourseto thevalue oftime:to thetimeittakestoreada text, or a painting,to rehearsetheactivityofcognitivedifferentation thatthatentails,to 6.

See my "Rauschenbergand the MaterializedImage," Artforum, XIII (December 1974).

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PeterCampus. mem (below) and dor (above). 1974. (Photo: Bevan Davies.)

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64

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get its point. That is, he wishesto pit thetemporalvalues of consciousnessagainst thestasisof thecommodity-fetish. Although responsive to the same considerations,the temporalvalues that werebuilt into theMinimalistsculptureof the1960swereprimarilyengagedwith involvedin a temporaldecoding questionsof perception.The viewerwas therefore of issues of scale, placement,or shape-issues that are inherentlymore abstract than, say, the contentsof memory.Pure, as opposed to applied psychologywe mightsay. But in theworkof certainyoungersculptors,JoelShapiro forexample, theissuesofMinimalismarebeing insertedintoa space which,likeRauschenberg's pictorial field,definesitselfas mnemonic. So thatphysicaldistancefroma sculpturalobject is understoodas being indistinguishablefromtemporalremove. It is to this body of work that I would want to add Campus's art. The narcissisticenclosure inherentin the video-mediumbecomes forhim part of a psychologisticstrategyby which he is able to examine the general conditionsof pictorialismin relationto itsviewers.It can, thatis,criticallyfornarcissism as a formof bracketing-outtheworld and itsconditions,at thesame timeas it can reassertthefacticity of theobject against thegrainof thenarcissisticdrivetowards projection. N.Y., 1976