Little by little, I am beginning to see the knots in my tangle of thorns. Seduction is beginning to appear as a more distinct topic and different components (all separate PhDs, I think) are now visible. It is seduction as practice, slightly entwined with it as principle, that interests me. Although I will encounter, undoubtedly, all four categories at different points of the research, I will leave the study of the phenomenon to phenomenologists and the examination of the process of seduction to self-help gurus such as Robert Greene.

Apart from Object a, the discourse of the analyst and transference, I know suspect the feminine and jouissance also have something to do with all of this. I have been putting off reading Seminar XX, but Parveen Adams’s article on Mary Kelly”¹” and Ellie Ragland’s text (How the fact that there’s no sexual relation gives rise to culture ”²” ) together with the objects I am making (reminiscent of jewellery and of being looked at… Soon, I will post pictures) is pointing in the direction of unequivocal feminine pleasures. Feminine but not feminist, although this is a new knot I will have to sit down and undo.

Funny how things go, If someone had told me a year ago that what I was doing was “feminine”, I would have closed off my ears, deny it, probably repress it and try to stop working with the materials I like. This time, and thanks to the good supervision of T‚Äî, S‚Äî and Sh‚Äî, who haven’t uttered the f-word (although they hinted at the fact that what seduced them may not seduce me and viceversa), I arrived at it myself and now see that it clearly has a bearing on the issue of seduction. Slowly but surely. Now, back to work.

1. Adams, P (1991) The Art of Analysis: Mary Kelly’s “Interim” and the Discourse of the Analyst. October, Vol. 58, pp. 81-96 [back]
2. in Ror Malone, K and Friedlander, S (2000) The subject of Lacan: A Lacanian reader for psychologists Albany: SUNY Press [back]

Curated by Tom Newell and Penny Whitehead

http://www.objectsinwaiting.co.uk

End Gallery, Psalter Lane Campus, Sheffield Hallam University, S11 8UZ.
Private view Wed 18 Oct 7-9pm, exhibition open to the public 19-26 Oct 2006
10-6 weekdays, 10-5 Saturdays, 1-6 Sundays
The curators in conversation Thu 26 Oct 4pm

An exhibition of objects that were found or bought with the particular thought or intention to one day use in the making of an artwork. However, days or months or even years have passed, and still no use for these objects has been found. Perhaps the objects have gained a status whereby they have become too important to combine with anything else. If this is so, consider the possibility that these objects, which have the potential to be elements of an artwork, could in fact be exhibited as works of art themselves. The objects in question may not necessarily be material; they could be a source of inspiration or a starting point for a work that was never realised.

In curating Objects in Waiting, we hope to provide an opportunity for artists to unburden themselves of something which may have taunted them from a corner of the studio for years.

This are the objects that first seduced me and then haunted me for years:

From the John Moores 24 Exhibition of contemporary painting 2006, at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool:

Jeff McMillan, The Seducer, Oil on found painting, 51 x 61.5cm, 2005

Artist Statement

For many years I have collected second-hand oil paintings from boot sales and thrift shops. These form a curious compendium of subjects and styles. It’s only in the last couple of years that this collection has made its way into my studio to become a material part of the work.

In this way I want to acknowledge the cannibalistic perversity of making a painting at this nihilistic point in history while at the same time using this viscous, highly chromatic medium to attempt to create a thing of beauty.

Elaine Brown, Lace and snake’s skin, Oil on gesso on boards, 46 x 30cm, 2005

Artist Statement

My paintings fall into the genre of still life. I am interested in the way an object can become resonant with meaning. The desire to fix the ephemeral nature of memories and emotional attachments underlies the work. Drawn to things which are inherently symbolic - personally or collectively - painting presents the place where, intuitively and deliberately, through assembly and depiction, I can manipulate their interpretations and create a scenario.

‘Lace and Snake‚Äôs Skin’ is a diptych although each panel could exist alone. Seen together they are unified by the gaze of the viewer. I have kept both objects for some years - placed in similar territories there are many parallels and polarities that draw them together and pull them apart.

Reflection
I see, experience and recognize recognize seduction in the second one of these artworks, even though the first painting, according to its title and the artist’s statement, deals with the seducer explicitly. I have been reading about art and the act on unveiling and wonder whether McMillan’s painting deals with the act-game of hidding and revealing in a direct way: a found painting is dipped in yellow oil pain, covering most of it; the painting is them, for all I can see, exhibited upside down. The viewer is faced with a series of obstacles that are tangible, identifiable.

Elaine Brown’s dyptich, however, is more subtle. The relationshp between the two paintings is not clear and neither is the arrangement of the polymorphous objects she chose (lace and snake skin). Like a Rorschach inkblot test, they could be read in a veriety of ways. I saw breats in the first one, that first and foremost object of desire, and the fact that the painting depicted lace only helped to reinforced by mental image. The second one didn’t lend itself to any specific object but was imbued with a sense of danger, something self-destructive. A snake embodying the devil was the first seducer.

In both of them, whether explicit or not, there is a veil drawn, a veil waiting to be lifted by the viewer. But these two veils are very different. Could it be that male and female seductions are different?

Channel 4’s Seduction School was peripherally interesting but the programme incurs in the same mistakes as any other TV programme on seduction.

The presenters, who obviously are very conversant with seduction techniques, are trendy, beautiful and confident whereas the poor guinea pigs have traumas, physical issues and little or no experience. The aim of the programme was to get the latter in the position of the former, to convert them into seducers through teaching them general techniques (Kino¹, SOI²…).

They approach seduction from a subject’s point of view, how can s/he overcome their fears and whatever usually goes wrong, in order to obtain a “close” (whether phone, instant date, kiss). Instead of overcoming, Fran?ßois Roustang’s excellent analysis of Casanova’s memoirs talk about challenge, reversibility (through magic) and losing oneself. A seducer is a strategist, someone who schemes, who reads situations and has an array of responses to them. Seducers, from Valmont to Don Juan, are usually chamaleonic. I just couldn’t see Casanova, going to Marton and Nanette and thinking how to slip in the word “sexy” into a conversation.

I understand that this may not really be the best or quickest way of teaching someone, on national television, how to get a partner. To be fair to the teachers³, they did get results in 2 of the 3 cases: the fat guy got a phone number, the tall guy, a kiss. But they seemed to be more diven by the competition between each other than by their objects of desire.

Now, whereas I think the aims and intentions of the programme are very virtuous (afterall, they are part of a series called “Shape the Nation”), I don’t think that what they intend to do is seduction. My problem with it is the same I found when I went to see Boucher’s exhibition at the Wallace Museum. Although entitled Seductive Visions, I didn’t feel seduced, not could see Boucher having been seduced. Perhaps representations of seduction had been attempted. But that’s just he best way of making it just go away…

To seduce is difficult. And for one to become a seducer, a few conditions have to be met. Seduction is not necessarily a positive in the first place! But… ah, yes… the word itself seduces, helps to entice, to allure viewers and visitors. That is the trick of Seduction School: we are seduced by the idea. Once we have given up our time to learn about it, we realise we have been led astray and we will not get anything in return.

1. Touching the person you are talking to [back]
2. Statement of intention, telling someone you want something more that friendship [back]
3. Johnny Saviour and Wayne Elise [back]

Surely there must be a difference between seductive and tasteless objects… Hello Kitty has defitenitely led her astray… Otherwise, why would anyone do this to a Ferrari? Is it just that what is seductive for her is not seductive for me?

Does one’s perception change if one found out these pictures were photoshoped?

This Mitsubishi, however, is a true one:

From Apple Insider
Apple: iPods built to last 4 years

Apple’s iPod turns five years old this October.

I agree with Manolo. Crocs are certainly the opposite of seduction.

Visually, they present an interesting juxtaposition: They share some elements of their proper function¹ and the the colour. Other than that, the perception, for a viewer (or owner) looking for a seductive experience, couldn’t be different.

The seductive experience is not a question of comfort, either, but of the experience of wearing these shoes, mainly for girls –this is a gender specific issue, I am sure–. What drives this experience is the appearance, the way the shoes look and what that may mean. Crocs encase whereas Blahnik reveals the foot; Crocs protect feet whereas Blahnik hugs them with the straps; Crocs have holes for ventilation (implying smelly, sweaty feet?) whereas Blahnik has bows; Crocs widen the feet whereas Blahnik lenghens the legs, hinting at, enhancing other parts of femenine anatomy and provoking a specific way of walking.

I’d like to do an experiment. I’d loke to wear each of these of a different foot and hop from one to the other… I wonder what kinds of psychological impact may this Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde study bring…

1. Preston, B. (2000) The function on things. A philosophical perspective on material culture. In Graves-Brown, P. ed. Matter, materiality and modern culture. London: Routledge [back]

Metro, Thusday 20 July 2006

Please remember, before attempting to write anything on seduction:
1. Seduction is a relational enterprise;
2. Seduction invokes the possibility of a change, from positive to negative;
3. Seduction may lead me astray in my efforts to theorise, research, examine, explore;
4. Seduction will resist any mode of production;
5. Seduction (first order simulacra) is what my research is about. Not attraction, fascination or any other third and fourth order simulacra.

Two of my favourite books on seduction (Titian: Nymph and Shepherd and Les Liaisons Dangereuses) are epistolar. This, together with the impossibility of touching the shoes I described below suggests that distance (appropriate distance, not too close, not too far) may be an essential component of seduction.