Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 22:25:23 GMT
From: anacmar-AT-mail.telepac.pt (Carlos Martins)
Subject: Re: more interventions 


Hi Frank

thanks for the interest about my lecture on the International 1st Meeting
of Sci-fi and Phantasy in Cascais (a small and very friendly fishermen
village very near from Lisbon) last week of September. Well, i have to say
that it was a very interesting and very friendly initiative mainly considering
the fact we hadn`t here anything before like this and these initiatives around
the phantasy and sci-fiction always were and still are considered in general
of minor interest. We have here Bryan Aldyss, Joe Haldeman, Joan Vinge and so
many others. I especially talked with Joe (during an intermission on the
Convention and when all of us were invited to the bar) about his lecture
and also about mine and the subject i tried to approach, i mean the links
between surrealism and fantastic and also the points where surrealism and
fantastic have different manners to deal with the real. I also referred the
profound influence on Surrealism from fantastic and especially of "black
novel" (Lewis, Walpole, Maturin and others) but also the contributions and
influence of surrealism on contemporary phantasy writers (during my
talk with Joe Haldeman he confirmed the influence of surrealism
for the contemporary phantasy and Sci-Fi writers especially on the re-
evaluation of the importance of Magic. I also mentioned the
influence of Surrealism on the creative process such as on films (even and
mainly after Bunuel, mentioning as i believe it was, the importance of
surrealist perspective in some film directors not commonly considered as
surrealists (at the top Michael Powell, Charles Laugthon, Orson Welles,
Hitchcock and a few od others and more recently in David Lynch, Cronenberg,
Tim Burton, Tony Scott (especially "The Hunger",  Sam Raimi, Charles Band,
Roberto (?) Rodriguez ("El Mariachi") and others. It was also an agressive
statement against all those that try to place surrealism and immagination
dominated by the aesthetics view or intent to impose rationalism on phantasy
and sci-fiction pushing our minds to accept the rules and dominancy of real. I
challenged the audience to question me but unfortunately i got no responses.
On painting i talked about Magritte, Dorothea Tanning, Clovis Trouile but
also the more contemporary as Guderna, Martin and Ladislav, Svankmajer,
Cruzeiro Seixas, Raul Perez and others.
During my lecture i also questioned some very ortodox surrealist point of view
in which at least to be identified with phantasy (on paintings, films, etc.)
is non surrealist itself. Concerning surrealist "aesthetical" point of view
(sorry to quote myself) i had the opportunity to say "if Poetry can`t sit down
around the table with the Central Commitee it also can`t be a whore sleeping
with the established powers". (Si la Poesia no debe estar en la mesa del
Comite Central tambien no pude ser una puta dormiendo con los poderes
estabelecidos").

In Portugal (and probably in Denmark or USA) this is the same to say the
next time i will be not invited again. Of course i will be not. Joan
Vinge talked about her life experiences related with science fiction,
Joe talked about his experiences with druggs and alchool related with
his perspective on science fiction and phantasy and during the conference
when i asked him about what he felt about recent attempts of
censorship in USA against free expression, sex and smoke  he
replied that people like him, as libertarians, are fucking all
that bullshit. From my side i decided to be very agressive with some
scorpions on aesthetics. My prodigious two holes shoes are telling
me how don`t makes any difference a picture or a poem made by a
an arrogant or pretensious person, surrealist or whatsoever, and a piece of
dog shit.

I think Frank, they are preparing a CD-ROM with all the lectures, bios
and all that happened there during a week. So, as soon as i got one
i can probably make a copy and try to send you. Have you a CD-Rom to
read it?

During this week i kept in touch again with Joe Haldeman (here on the
Internet) that replied to me about our encounter here in Cascais and also
about the next Phantasy Convention in Chicago on October 31 (he will flight
to there) and the 1st On Line Science Fiction Convention on the same day)
(on the Web).

Trying to be clear about what i said about art in a dialectical and
revolutionary way, i have to say that for me art it is not separated from life
and life itself is a dialectical process not a static thing. Far from the
established values what is real important (surrealist or not surrealist) is
the capability of art to contribute for the mind`s emancipation and make
return to mankind all the lost powers. In this sense art must be like in the
alchimey process, the search of the regeneration of the matter and
decoding the misterious links between man and the universe. Separated from
poetry and life, hiding behind of preconceived and dogmatic patterns (even
between artists considered as surrealists) art will fall on illustration and
decorative. When i call "a dialectical and revolutionary way" i don`t mean
it has to be political or social in general sense. Of course this would be
very naif or even stupid to not say very dangerous considering all the
mistakes the surrealists (and certainly most of us during the stalinist
period) made in the past (working with Communist Party, etc.). For me, the
creative don`t must be, in any case,  submitted to the political or social,
revolutionary or not. There isn`t any "surrealisme revolutionaire" or
"socialiste" from any kind. The only "engament" of art must be in the sense of
searching the "freshness of childhood emotions" and if it could express any
social event it will be only because it marks its own situation in relation to
that but without renouncing to any of its own prerogatives. However, as Breton
said if "we insist in believing that art, must be more love than anger or
pity, we will refuse as not less tendentious and reactionary all image that
the poet or painter propose us nowadays (on thirties) describing us as living
in a stable univers where the sensorial pleasures not only could be tasted but
exalted" or denouncing a kind of art "... anxious of throwing a carpet of
flowers over a mine world" and a kind of artists "whose work don`t express the
tragic concerns of such period". Why not to "open a death nature to the
torments of mankind"? So, the surrealists must refuse any political compromise
but also a kind of hedonism that set aside from the field of their emotions
all those  that could come from the immediate reality. As i said to Barrett,
more than i you expressed the right way to follow, when you mention the need
to be agressive with those that are offending poetry, love and freedom or
Stuart when he said "... So we have to somehow become visible and audible".
How to combine our researches on the creative field with the tragic
apprehension of mankind in the present times? Surrealism`s invisibility
(here using the term from Stuart) comes, in my opinion, from this
problem - the lack of activity in surrealist sense what means not
only on aesthetics or literature (making group statements here on
Internet but also on newspapers and magazines, sending it to everywhere,
exhibitions, doing creative games, "exquisite corpses" and so many other
things). Why not a magazine on the Web? Times to times why not to stand a
general group position that may intervene such in creative field as also
in social, political, scientific and other matters of relevant interest
to the surrealist view? Why not to follow with the exhibition here?
Sorry i would like to say more and wish to be more profound on this subject
but unfortunately the time is going on.


later
carlos