‘Strobe Light Consciousness and Body Technology in the Theatre of
Antonin Artaud.’
Milton Loayza
'I do not
work
in
the
domain of
any
universe
whatsoev
er, I work
within
unique
duration.'
(Artaud,
1976:
120). (1)
'In
this
Theatre,
lets undo
space.'
(Artaud,
1978:
252)
Antonin Artaud's documented ‘madness,’ the theatricality of his persona and
his insistence on his own ‘otherness’ have created a prejudice in our
understanding of Artaud's ideas about the theatre. The prejudice of
'otherness' means that one feels compelled to define the nature of Artaud’s
subjectivity in order to understand his work and/or to separate the more formal
elements in his theories for pragmatic application. Artaud's theories are to a
certain extent practiced in his own writings, which are performances in by
themselves. Artaud’s investment in his theories was a practice that
concentrated a great effort in trying to define what our spectatorship should be
like. Artaud was interested in conveying to his audience what was the
metaphysical ground that he tried to inhabit. Therefore our attention to his
ideas should not be based in a definition of his persona and the specific
formal elements described in his writings, but.on the relationship of described
theatrical means to the metaphysical universe that he tries to inhabit. Artaud
discovers a home to this metaphysical universe in the theatre itself, which he
considers as 'its double' and revealing of its 'cruelty.' He sees the stage as a
theatrical 'otherness' that functions or behaves according to a specific
metaphysical organization. Artaud's project is metatheatrical in spirit because
it needs the theatre in order to create its own type of reality. Theatricality
reveals itself in the end as antithetical to the project known as reality. As
Artaud says in the voice of father Cenci: 'in real life we do more and say less
and in the theatre we talk endlessly and accomplish very little. I [Artaud/Cenci]
will be the one to restore the balance at the expense of real life.'(1978: 154)
The purpose of this paper is to present Artaud's vision as a metatheatrical
world that is perceptual in nature and whose innovation is to produce a
metaphysical universe that is defined by its own theatricality.
The concept of theatricality as an alienated presence is phenomenological to
the extent that perception takes precedence over form and content.
Theatricality, in this approach, is merely a presence, an appearance that
needs a performative agent (like the stage villainies of father Cenci) in order
to sustain itself in the realms of space and time. The perceptual
conceptualization of theatre and its relation to metaphysics can be traced
back to Schopenhauer's notion that the effect of tragedy leads to a sublime
perception of the world, and to Nietzsche's ideas about the perception of the
Dionysian chorus in Greek tragedy. Both views are related to Artaud's vision
and can be helpful to our understanding of its metaphysical nature.
Schopenhauer locates the perceptual nature of tragedy in the experience of
the sublime, which makes the spectator turn away from the interests of the
will. The essential theatricality of the tragic catastrophe, according to the
German philosopher, alienates the spectator from his own will to life. This
alienation is a sublime renouncement that allows the spectator a metaphysical
awareness of 'the aspect of the world which, directly strives against our will.'
(1883: 212) The effect of sublimation is provoked mainly by the presence of
suffering on the stage which reveals a will in the world that supercedes human
will. Tragic catastrophe remains encased in its theatricality as a vision by
which the spectator wakes up as from ‘the bad dream of life.’ (1883: 213)
Perception of tragedy, for instance, alerts the spectator to turn away from
human will and towards a sublime perception of the world.
Nietzsche presents another aspect of the perceptual nature of theatre in his
concept of the chorus as a vision of the Dionysian mass of spectators 'just as
the world of the stage, in turn, is a vision of this satyr chorus.' (1968: sec 8,
63-68) The chorus’ trance induces the spectator to forget his social identity
and to perceive the drama as part of a Dionysian mass. The theatricality of
the world of the stage is assured by the perception of the chorus which, acts
as a bridge between a normal perception and a vision where the divine nature
of the drama is actually experienced. In this case it is not the tragic suffering
but the Dionysian spirit transmitted by the chorus that transforms the
perception of the stage into a phenomenon of divine nature. The functioning
of Artaud's theatre can be related to these two aesthetic concepts. The first
one is a double coding that is not semiotic but gestural: for instance, the
concept of the tragic catastrophe as a gesture that indicates a movement
towards the sublime --from a position of 'seeing' to one of 'being seen' by the
world. The second concept is the modification of consciousness by a
performative agent that results in the transformation in the nature of the
perceived stage reality. This occurs, for example, in the audience's reaction to
the Dionysian chorus. Artaud, like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, seeks to
transform the stage presence into a metaphysical vision. While Schopenhauer
relies on the theatricality of the tragic catastrophe and Nietzsche on the
performative trance of the chorus, Artaud tries to give that kind theatricality
and performative power to the space and time of the stage itself.
The metaphysical basis of Artaud's theatre deals specifically with the issue of
presence in the realms of space and time. In relation to Nietzsche and
Schopenhauer, Artaud moves towards an intensified theatricality in the realm
of space/time by moving away from an identification of presence with force.
For instance, the "will of the world" conceived by Schopenhauer and the
divine nature of drama in Nietzsche’s view remain both attached to an original
power in infinite space, or time. Henri Lefebvre has pointed out that the
relationships between force (energy), time and space are problematical. He
argues, for example, that 'one can neither conceive of a beginning [an origin
of such force in time and space] nor yet do without such an idea. As soon as
that (albeit essential) activity which discerns and marks distinctions is
removed from the picture, the interrupted and the successive are concordant.'
(1991: 22) The 'interrupted and the successive' may appear, in this view, as
our intuitive, albeit paradoxical apprehension of the realm of space-time. This
is an intuitive perception that combines two contradictory ideas about time,
one that is a chronological continuum and theoretically infinite, and another
that is diachronic, that is, a moment of perception that interrupts the infinity of
space.
Our positivist mind favors the idea of a continuous time because it helps us in
our grasping of events and their causality. In relation to this mental habit, one
might say that our experience of a time as an interruption of infinite space is
repressed. Nietzsche tried to guide us out of our slavery to causality by
suggesting that 'space and time do not exist in themselves. Changes, he said,
'are only appearance (or sense processes for us,)' (1967: 545) so that a
succession of moments gives the appearance of change even though the
occurrences are not connected to each other when seen from the perspective
of an ‘interrupting’ time. Nietzsche does not deny in the end the 'succession'
of time, but he interrupts the false mental picture with an awareness of its
fatality. Nietzsche imagines fate as a cycle of eternal return in which the same
moment reappears to interrupt through repetition the chronological continuum
of time.
Artaud, on the other hand, tries to move out of the chain of succession in time.
He seems to think that what maintains us fixated in the movement of a
successive time is a concurrent perception of a continuous space. Continuous
space may create universes of causality and language that alienate the body
and the senses from a truer and non-deferred experience of time. Artaud
searches to avoid, consequently, an activity in infinite space to reach an
authentic feeling of life-- he says, for example, 'I do not work in the domain of
any universe whatsoever, I work within unique duration.' (1976:120) This
statement is comparable to another that says: 'In this theatre, let's undo
space, / new notion of space which we will multiply by tearing it, by undoing it
thread by thread, by digging it down to the cord.' (1978: 252) Artaud seems to
express a desire to experience time and space in a different relation to each
other, perhaps a relation that would reveal their theatricality.
Theatrical space is a fundamental factor in Artaud’s dramaturgy because it
functions as material evidence of the potential of true presence. Artaud might
have understood that what limits the possibility of pure presence and
theatricality is the anteriority of an empty stage to theatrical representation.
This anteriority led Schopenhauer to rely on the content of tragedy to move
perception away from the reality of drama and life. Nietzsche, on the other
hand places the chorus between the spectator and the stage to fill the drama
with presence. In both cases there is a process of sublimation that partially
negates the theatricality of the vision in favor of the infinite space of the world
or the infinite time of the gods. In both cases time and space fail to come
together as a theatrical presence
In order to correct the metaphysical void of the stage, the theatrical must allow
'time' to appear in space and 'space' to be fulfilled in time. Artaud discovers, I
believe, this theatricality and tries to inhabit it through a 'consciousness that
gives to the exercise of every act of life its blood-red-color, its cruel nuance,
since it is understood that life is always someone's death.'(1978: 98) In this
perspective, life and death are experiences of perceptual change, grasped by
consciousness as a discontinuous process through which the body becomes
different. This discontinuous process is akin to the appearance of disease.
This connection made Artaud think of the plague, a disease that appears, in
his own analysis, with no conceivable cause, and develops spectacularly, with
enormous 'spiritual freedom.' (1978: 22) Cruelty, Artaud suggests, is also the
psychological equivalent of life's presence in time. Cruelty, he says is in fact 'a
movement of the spirit, which is actually modeled on the gesture of life itself.
With respect to metaphysics, it is the idea that if life accepts extension,
thickness, weight and matter, it must, as a direct consequence, accept evil
and all that belongs to evil, to space and to matter.' (1978: 110)
The fulfillment of space in matter and the presence of time in the
discontinuous process of change are two contiguous processes that become
possible through a specific experience of time that Deleuze/Guattari call
Chronos.(2) (1987: 492) Chronos is unique duration and is not infinite, but
reappears again and again in our immediate experience of space. Chronos, in
other words, becomes manifest in space, without originating there. Its
materiality consists of a continuously differentiated realm of appearances.
Matter and bodies reveal their multiplicity of shapes, movements and light by
creating a rhythm or pulse that is alien to the changes and successions that
are otherwise perceivable in a 'spatialized,' infinite, conception of time.
Chronos is the time of live appearance, of trans-formations and of death as
unique and unrelated phenomena.
The referentiality of meaning and of language also seems to be lost in
Chronos , in favor of the intensity of appearances and their spectacular
nature. In this respect, the 'Theatre of Cruelty' is related to Chronos when it
professes the 'triumph of pure mise-en scène.' (Artaud, 1978: 237) The miseen-scène is envisioned as a 'poetry in space' (1978: 37) that transcends the
communicative power of referential language and interpretable action. Artaud,
in short, demands for his theatre a Schopenhauerean surrender of the false
will to interpretation and a Nietzschean embrace of theatre as vision.
Artaud suggests the specific relationship of the actor technique to the realm of
space/time in a late work titled 'Alienating the Actor.' He suggests that the
performer should 'give everything to that which does not exist and has no
being; and nothing to what is, can be seen, has borders or is a place where
one can stay or remain.' (1948b: 7-14) The negation of space as a medium for
self and expressive concretion clearly suggests the inhabiting of a
nonreferential, liminal time that reveals a specific form of theatricality, of
gestures and scenic forms. The Artaudian expression appears thus within a
time in which the appearance of ‘theatrical’ matter is the only event. Artaud
sees theatricality as 'the conflict of gestures, of words, of movements or
noises’ which are ‘first of all a conflict, a gathering of adverse forces, of
impacts, that time, rather than space can unravel.’ (1978: 255) This domain of
time can reveal a form of conflict that is ‘metaphysical’ and theatrical at the
same time, negating thus the ‘realities’ offered by an infinite spatial domain.
In an effort to convey the nature of this theatrical vision, Artaud plays with the
tropes of translation and expression and ends up favoring translation. He says
that
'every true sentiment is actually untranslatable. To
express is to betray it [the true sentiment]...but to
translate it is to conceal it. The truthful expression
hides that which it manifests. It opposes the spirit
to the factual void of nature and creates a kind of
fullness in thought. Or, if one prefers, with respect
to the manifestation of nature, it creates a void in
thought.’ (1978: 69)
Artaud tries to define what is capable of transmitting a 'true sentiment' by its
position between nature and thought. He believes, in other words, that theatre
can connect the actor and the spectator to the 'true sentiment' by remaining
faithful to the fact that neither perceivable nature nor active thought is directly
connected to this 'true sentiment.' Therefore, what should 'appear' in theatre,
is a gesture that manifests the true sentiment by concealing it. This form of
'translation' that Artaud embraces is in opposition to the semantic expressivity
of language. Translation seeks to bypass the semiotization of language, in
which there is a distance and polarity between the spaces of content and
expression. The act of translating is therefore given superiority as a form of
theatrical communication. The truthful expression is therefore actually a
translation, and the metaphor can be stretched to imply a simultaneous
translation, a gestural double of presence comparable to the chorus'
Dionysian translation of divine presence, which appears and remains
concealed at the same time in the vision of the stage action.
Interestingly, the Artaudian gestural presence is not anchored in a Dionysian
force that it embraces, but exists in a relation of opposition to 'the factual void
of nature.' In 'The theatre of Cruelty,' Artaud indicates that the appearance of
nature is an illusion as long as it communicates 'the idea of a preconceived
universe' (1948a) which would be the locus of spatial and linguistic
referentiality, as well as of an original force. Artaud avoids both referentiality
and force by placing himself or the actor at a dead point between the void and
appearance, the liminal time of Chronos, in order to interrupt, with the miseen-scene of a gestural system, the chronological continuum of an infinite
space-time. Artaud describes the point of precipitation of live appearance in
liminal time as the 'dead point of space' which could be described as a space
with no time. The theatre provides a virtual field of potentialities where the
actor can enter this metaphorical void that must be filled with a momentum for
the spatial appearance of matter and bodies. Artaud conceives the actor's
activity on the stage as a technology that puts ‘time’ in movement, an act that
he describes metaphorically as ‘the use of the wheel’ (1970: 259).
The technological trope of the wheel reveals an Artaudian will that fights the
interpellation (3) of nature as the producer of bodies. Artaud desires to plant a
new seed in our consciousness: a seed of spiritual culture that feeds on, yet
opposes the naturalization of forms--to be cultivated, Artaud says, is 'to burn
forms in order to win life--it is to learn how to feel whole in the constant
movement of forms that one destroys consequently' (1970: 259). We arrive
here at the mythical aspect of Artaud's theatre in relation to which issues of
representation somewhat miss the point because Artaud conceives theatre as
an act of transformation of reality.
The Artaudian expression is not an itinerary towards the spaces of content,
but a performative act that 'populates the space in order to cover the
void'(1968: 207). Artaud's theatre creates thus a protean world that ignores
the god of Creation and the infinite extension of nature. The mise-en-scène,
which embraces the gestural technique of the actor, is conceivably a
technology that produces a liminal time, located between the extension and
force of nature and the intention and referentiality of thought. In that liminal
time of pure theatricality, theatre can 'present physically and in a natural
manner the mythical act of making a body' (Artaud, 1948b: 15).
I would like to advance now the conceptual picture of a 'strobe light
consciousness' as a helpful image that suggests the experience of Chronos,
that is, time in its diachronic relation to space. The strobe light shows an
indefinite series of static shapes that give the illusion of movement but
actually interrupt the continuity that gives shape to an observable event. The
'event' appears therefore with a different set of relationships. The strobe light
provokes, for instance, a perception of the surrounding space as finite and
wholewhen it reverberates on all sides with the intermittent light and envelops
the observer in "interrupting" moment between the nothingness of darkness
and the totality of lit space. I would like to apply this picture, so to speak, to
the concept of an Artaudian consciousness, which places itself in that liminal
temporal field. The liminality of the moment created by the strobe light
negates both the infinite void of darkness and the potential referentiality of a
reality outside of the field of perception. These semantic possibilities are
interrupted by the intermittent light and make the event purely theatrical and
temporal. The existence of infinite space is replaced by the ‘will of theatre’ in
which time, not space becomes the domain of appearance and perception.
This 'time,' or Chronos, reinstates a tactile connection between a perceived
‘world’ and the perceiving subject. In other words, as under a strobe light
effect, the body and the surrounding ‘world’ change or become different
together, so that the scopic distance conceived in spatialized perception is
transformed into a temporal relation of simultaneous presence.
The effect of temporal rather than spatial presence is crucial to Artaud's total
theatre because it allows the activation of a mimetic consciousness in the
spectator. Stimulation of the spectator from all sides has a countereffect in the
consciousness since ‘in the same way that there will be no respite, nor any
unoccupied place in space, there will be no respite, or void in the spectator's
spirit or sensibility' (Artaud, 1978: 122). The mimetic effect on consciousness
that Artaud describes here might be compared to the Nietzschean vision,
'born, as it were from [the spectator's] own rapture.' There is nevertheless an
important difference, that is, the fact that the simultaneous presence of
appearance and consciousness are the two sides of the same coin, they are
both gestures, a figuration, to use Artaud's term, waiting to become a
transfiguration and whose great magical agent is the void itself. This
transfiguration cannot be spatial, cannot go back to the neutralizing spaces of
spatial referentiality, therefore the Artaudian gesture must remain in the
theatricality of liminal time. Theoretically, Artaud's theatre would be
irreversible since it would trap both our bodies and our consciousness --that is
part of the revolutionary aspect of his vision, which calls for the abolition of
space as we know it.
In his comments on Lucas van den Leyden's painting 'Loth and his
Daughters,' (The Louvre Museum), Artaud gives us a description that conveys
the particular theatricality that may be perceived through what I have termed
'a strobe light consciousness' (1978: 33,34). The idea of simultaneous
presence and the involvement of the various senses can be appreciated in the
following statement:
One might, in the crackling of fireworks, see through the nightly explosion of
stars, rockets and solar bombs, a sudden visual revelation, in the
hallucinatory light, of the details appearing in relief from the nocturnal
landscape. The light and image of trees, tower, mountains, houses remain
forever linked in our spirit with the idea of this ripping sound. The submission
of the diverse aspects of the landscape to the presence of fire in the sky can
be best explained by saying that, while possessing their own light they remain
yet connected to it, as a kind of slow echo, as live points of reference born
from it and placed there to allow it to exert its full destructive power.
This description indicates a relationship between the sight of the fireworks, the
totality of the landscape, and the different senses. A simultaneous presence
of these elements forms relations of meaning that are purely theatrical.
On the stage, the agents of theatricality are the actor and director, who create
a mise-en-scène of scenic elements and gestures. The nature of this gesture,
which I qualify as technology, because of its opposition to a referential
universe, would be that of an interrupted or suspended movement-having the
particular temporality of a 'pause' or 'syncope.' The 'pause' places gesture in
the temporal rather than scopic realm, that is, a domain where consciousness
can acquire presence. A gesture is indeed an act of spirit that is not made to
be seen but to provoke a momentum leading to the next gesture, temporally
superimposed on the first. The Artaudian gesture is rhythmical and rejects an
infinite spatialization of perception and cognition by producing a liminal time
that pauses between the invisible and the visible. The gesture brings a 'strobe
light consciousness' and the body together in an interrupting temporality that
gives back to appearance its forceful and fateful necessity. Appearance
ceases to be henceforth a scopic experience in space and becomes charged
instead with the temporal theatricality of the syncope and the palimpsest.
Artaud's mise-en scène produces gestures, and whether they emerge in the
form of words, noise, movement or music, it is a matter of interrupting,
through a body technology, the continuity of space. True sentiments may be
evoked once the theatricality of liminal time has been produced. Artaud
explains that in the theatre 'a line is a noise, a movement is like music, and
the gesture that emerges from a noise is like a word, precise as a phrase'
(1963: 208). The theatricality of a gesture is its objective quality, its temporal
precision, and is equivalent here, to the theatricality of a consciousness.
Artaud's strobe light consciousness and body technology must work in liminal
time in order to create a mise-en-scène that resists the sublimation of the
visible.
Notes
1. All translations of Artaud are my own.
2. Deleuze/Guattari define Chronos and Aeon as two distinct conceptions
of time.
3. Interpellation is the term used by Althusser for the address given to the
subject by the voice of ideology.
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