Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2001 17:53:12 -0500
Subject: Re: unpresentable and unperformable


Julie et. al.,

Now we have the "unperformable" as well as the "unpresentable".  Last
Sunday, Diane D. posted a message I just re-read which refers to ideas of
Lyotard and Kant on the sublime
and terror.

Here is an excerpt:

> Again, Lyotard defines "the sublime sentiment," after Kant, as >"an
intrinsic
>combination of pleasure and pain: the pleasure that reason >should exceed
all
>presentation, the pain that imagination or sensibility should not >be equal
>to the concept"

I can't personally relate to the "sublime sentiment".

 Agree that  reason  may exceed presentation (can't find the words).

But  "imagination or sensibility not equal to the concept" is an expression
I don't understand.  What is the concept? what needs to be imagined or
sensed?

However I think I understand what you are saying about Artaud and Grotowski,
although I don't know their work.  If memory serves, Artaud was friend of
Anais Nin, and she wrote about him
in her diary, except I don't conclude that "the sublime cannot be accessed
through the terrible".

Whose "sublime" are we speaking about?  Give artists a chance.  Eventually
they will produce something worth waiting for in response to the "is it
happening", and a new cycle will begin.

As a performance it will not be on the same plane as the occasionally
catastrophic beauty and terror of Mother Nature
doing her thing in this Year of the Earthquake.

Best,
Hugh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Julie Manning wrote:

> some thoughts to throw into the mix:  Lyotard seems to explore the sublime
a lot
> in relation to art/theatre, and I think there are other artists who can
help
> throw light on it.  There was a suggestion of the sublime having been
> experienced as the beautiful, but not of terror, and therefore, is that a
> complete sublime?  (or something to that effect).  To remain using the
> theatrical mode, Jerzy Grotowski and Antonin Artaud both aimed toward a
sublime
> that included terror.  In both their work, without ever referring to it as
"the
> sublime," they sought a moment in which the participants were,
essentially,
> stripped of anything except the "is it happening."   Grotowski's
"Akropolis" was
> a study of the death camp.  His actors retreated from usual cliches and
went
> through a personal and emotional stripping that was described as often a
painful
> process, to rid them of "acting" and bring them to a point where the
performance
> was an "is it happening". Artaud worked for the same thing, only in a more
> abstract manner, with a more social agenda (he wanted to purge society).
The
> result?  Grotowski eventually left the theatre because it couldn't produce
the
> right "stillness", and Artaud's works are, essentially, unperformable.
Perhaps
> the conclusion to be reached is that the sublime cannot be accessed
through the
> terrible, though it may reference it.  At least not artistically.
>
>