Foggy, foggy world (part 1)

         #Nostalghia

I can’t imagine our world without fog in it. Much less the works of art that are full of clarity. Maybe that’s because fog is ever ambigious, unclear and touching. In our overstimulated lifes it’s a nature’s way of letting us have some peace of mind, separating us from the excess of the objects in the background. Imagination as well as Goya’s demons come into play, the scene is set just for them.

-> read on ->

*I. Shishkin – Krestovsky Island Shrouded in Mist

It’s also a proper metaphor of modern expirience in a very different aspect. For with every, action, decison and choice made we can only see as far as our own hand or nose in terms of results and consequences. Just as if we were permanently covered with mist. Of course we claim that we cannot know everything but what is more we have to accept the fact that our vision is disturbingly limited.

Extreme verson of this type of worldview is to be traced in Pynchon’s masterpiece:

Will Postwar be nothing but ’events,’ newly created one moment to the next? No links? Is it the end of history?

T. Pynchon – Gravity’s Rainbow

No links whatsoever? That doesn’t sound convincing or desirable for that matter. The fog seems more suitable, more real, more called for. The veil is in front of our eyes still we can make out some shapes  behind it. It’s only that we, poor creatures, have no way to look deeper and discover the whole mechanism in the daylight, so to speak. However only with this version comes hope. We get to be convinced that at least there is something. It’s hidden from sight, sure, but we have a truth to belive in.

 #Hard Boiled

So that we can interpret, try, experiment and have a reason to put our trust into this sketchy shape out there.  And if you’d change the fog into clear, resolved, no-links situation, all the magic is lost, all that matters is lost. The consequences, those contours in the mist cannot be grasped by science, translated into numbers.

 #L’Eclisse

In fact we get a little help from Roberto  Bolano, who might be quite right noticing what many mathemathically trained economists often lose from their sight. The third part of the equation. The part that is actuallly a little more complicated than the other two.

So take note. This is the equation: supply + demand + magic. And what is magic? Magic is epic and it’s also sex and Dionysian mists and play.

R. Bolano – 2666

It’s just that some people focus on discovering what the demand is…

 #madmen

…while others keep on struggling for any contact with the magical essence. A touch of the absolute, the ever missing link. You know that there are more ways to communicate this than anything else. Maybe because each work of art is an attempt to pin this ever-evasive blink of the universe….

Exhibit A:

 W. Turner – Fort Vimieux

Exhibit B:

         E. Munch – The Wave

Did they suceeded? Which one is closer? These are the wrong questions. You don’t ever suceed in this. You may however get into the vicinity, you may look remotely in the right general direction of it. Whatever works is good enough. Even if you look for it in an old, wrinkled face, even if you look into empty eyes. It has no relation to aesthethics and beauty, magic is a far wider category:

I like that. I like it that my country’s people have such empty, bulging
eyes. This instills in me a feeling of legitimate pride. You can imagine
what the eyes are like where everything is bought and sold – deeply
hidden, secretive, predatory and frightening.

V. Erofeev – Moscow-Petushki 

to be continued….