almost something insider forum

All of the artists in this show are either consciously working in the tradition of semi-essentialism or producing works that reflect the basic themes of semi-essentialism. For a full description and analysis of semi-essentialism from a decidedly more academic standpoint, please take a look at James Macpherson’s seminal essay from 1976, “Somethings and the Things in Between.”[1]

We’ll use the following working definition for semi-essentialism: works of semi-essentialism don’t flaunt the fact that they exist, but they don’t run from it either. In a word, works of semi-essentialism are subtle. They don’t like to announce their presence right off the bat. But they also aren’t obscure for the sake of being obscure and they aren’t ‘subverting’ or ‘rupturing’ or ‘questioning’ anything, necessarily. The point, as Macpherson once quipped, is that, “Between things and nothing there’s a fair amount of interesting crap going on.” The world we actually live in, though sometimes fail to notice, is the world in which semi-essentialism operates.

[1]James Macpherson, "Somethings and the Things in Between," Art Discourse Spring (1976) vol. 12, issue 2, pp. 124-32.

Daisuke Yamashiro

Daisuke presents a direct link to semi-essentialism in that he studied with Makari Kamatso at the Tokyo Art Institute. He became interested in the potential thing-like nature of feelings and sensations. They happen, they're real. But then again, they are only an effect. If nothing else, they need a body to happen. They’re secondary characteristics, as the philosophers might say. And still, when a body yawns it's as if, for those few seconds, there's nothing else. Daisuke, in a nod to Kamatso and semi-essentialism, calls yawns 'primary accidents'.

Note:

We would be remiss if we didn't note the poem The Yawn by the great American poet Paul Blackburn (especially as it happens to occur in Queens).

The Yawn
Paul Blackburn

The black-haired girl
with the big
                          brown
                                          eyes
on the Queens train coming
                          in to work, so
opens her mouth so beautifully
                          wide
                                       in a ya-aawn, that
two stops after she has left the train
I have only to think of her            and I
                                           o-oh-aaaww-hm
                                            wow        !

A fragment from Makari Kamatso's Notebooks, vol. 3:

….The body makes a hundred, a thousand, a million little burps, gurgles, farts, upchucks, grunts, whizzles, guffaws, wines, whinnies, whelps, evacuations…. More and more I've come to think that these little things are quite beautiful…to think of a human being without them would be very sad. In a way, they are the most human parts of us, or just as human as our no less miraculous, though completely different, capacity for abstract reasoning….

Cécile Paris and Kerry Downey.

Sometimes, erasing things is more interesting than adding stuff. Kerry and Cecile’s works are in the tradition of Ronald John Radi Os, which was created by erasing selected words from Milton’sParadise Lost in order to create a new and different poem. Interestingly, there’s another good poem in there, but you only notice it by removing things, taking things away, erasing.

A short excerpt from Ronald Johnson's Radi Os.

The radiant image

                                                    the only

                                                     Garden

    On the bare outside of this World,

           no bars of Hell, nor

      far off Heaven,

    And Man there placed,

                                the sole command,

    create  

                                               or love

                                                    (RADI OS O III)

The works are also partially inspired by Joachim Kranzen's 1974 semi-essentialist performance Foot at the Hulos gallery in Cologne, in which he removed one cubic foot of material from every sculpture he had made in the last twenty years. He then discarded the remaining parts of the sculpture and has kept only the 'feet'.

Note:

Print from Joachim Kranzen's Reducing Sculpture

Nick Normal

During his years living and working with artist Sherry Levine, Nick Normal became influential in developing the notion of artistic 'appropriations'. Levine herself was much taken with Macpherson's thoughts on semi-essentialism and Normal and Levine co-authored an important essay titled "Bad Platonism: Copying Copies." In his recent work, Nick has gone a step beyond Levine's famous copies of Modernist art and has begun making replicas of things that are already secondary works. In an interview for Artforum in 1984, Nick said, "The library book is the opposite of the first edition, that's why they're great, they're like the prostitutes of the book world and equally honest by being so."

Note:

The Library of Congress was established by an act of Congress in 1800 when President John Adams signed a bill providing for the transfer of the seat of government from Philadelphia to the new capital city of Washington. The legislation described a reference library for Congress only, containing "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress - and for putting up a suitable apartment for containing them therein...."

Established with $5,000 appropriated by the legislation, the original library was housed in the new Capitol until August 1814, when invading British troops set fire to the Capitol Building, burning and pillaging the contents of the small library.

From Gilles Deleuze, "The Simulacrum and Ancient Philosophy" in The Logic of Sense:

"What does it mean to 'reverse Platonism'? This is how Nietzsche defined the task of his philosophy or, more generally, the task of the philosophy of the future. The formula seems to mean the abolition of the world of essences and of the world of appearances. Such a project, however, would not be peculiar to Nietzsche. The dual denunciation of essences and appearances dates back to Hegel, or, better yet, to Kant. It is doubtful that Nietzsche meant the same thing….”

Robert McCarren, Reuben Lorch-Miller, Nick Normal, Jayeon Kwon:
Noticing Things

It's a basic attitude of semi-essentialism that the 'real stuff' is right there. Of course, this is nothing new in art. Works of art have long served to show us things or bring attention to phenomena that might otherwise have been missed. Or they show us things in a new way. Works of semi-essentialism are unique perhaps in the simple fact that they nestle so closely among the things that are already there. At the same time, a certain amount of work is required. It isn't the point, contra Fluxus, that art and life are simply one. It's that art can peek out from all kinds of places. One needs to cultivate, therefore, a knack for noticing things.

From a paper co-authored by McCarren, Lorch-Miller, Normal, and Kwon. As of yet unpublished

"It can be seen that there are various views regarding the role of conscious and unconscious processes in L2 acquisition. An important contribution to this debate has been Schmidt's "noticing hypothesis" and its claims about how input becomes intake. This hypothesis has been advocated by a growing number of researchers (Truscott, 1998). However, the assertion that noticing is necessary for L2 acquisition and the notion of "noticing the gap" appear to be based on intuition and assumption that is not supported by appropriate and exhaustive empirical research. This in turn raises the question of whether teachers/teaching materials should indeed attempt to cater to noticing. Truscott's insightful weaker view of (conscious) noticing being tied to the acquisition of metalinguistic knowledge but not to the development of communicative competence offers what appears to be an acceptable alternative that still recognizes a role for teachers/teaching materials with regard to noticing. What is needed then, is a shift in focus on empirical research in order to provide evidence that supports or falsifies Truscott's weaker version of the noticing hypothesis. One area of worthwhile research that has received minimal attention is the effect of learner training on the learners' ability to notice linguistic forms and, if Truscott's adaptation of the noticing hypothesis is accepted, its strong implications for the rate of development of metalinguistic knowledge. This research may help to clarify what role noticing plays in second language learning, provide valuable information relating to the relationship between learner training and the acquisition of metalinguistic knowledge, and facilitate the understanding of how these processes contribute to learners' communicative competence."

Olivia Jane-Ransley

The warp and woof of everyday communication is like a rich quarry for the strange and intriguing when one pokes at it a bit. It's like when you say the same word over and over again and it suddenly sounds crazy. In her youth, Olivia wrote a short book on Aristotle's Categories. Working on the text so closely convinced her of a thesis Aristotle would have argued against. Human language doesn't reveal anything more basic at all. It just gets more complicated. But, she argues, this is no reason to despair of meaning. The trouble is that there is so much meaning, not that it is fragile.

From a manual published by the Social Issues Research Centre at Oxford

The greeting ritual

The greeting procedure mentioned in the last chapter is a good example. When a regular enters the pub, you will often hear a chorus of friendly greetings from other regulars, the public and bar staff (“Evening, Joe”, “Alright, Joe?”, “Wotcha, Joe”, “Usual is it, Joe?”, etc.). The regular responds to each greeting, usually addressing the greeter by name or nickname (“Evening, Doc”, “Alright, there, Lofty?”, “Wotcha, Bill” “Usual, thanks, Pauline”, etc.). No-one is conscious of obeying a rule or following a formula, yet you will hear the same greeting ritual in every pub in the country.

Pub etiquette does not dictate the actual words to be used in this exchange (and you may hear some inventive and idiosyncratic variations). The words may not even be particularly polite: a regular may be greeted with “Back again, Joe? – haven’t you got a home to go to?” or “Ah, just in time to buy your round, Joe!”.

How to join in

When you first enter a pub, don’t just order a drink. Start by saying, “Good evening” or “Good morning” (both are often shortened to “ ’ning”), with a friendly nod and a smile, to the bar staff and the regulars at the bar counter. For most natives, this will trigger an automatic, reflex greeting-response, even if it is only a nod. Don’t worry if the initial response is somewhat reserved. By greeting before ordering, you have communicated friendly intentions. Although this does not make you an ‘instant regular’, it will be noticed, and your subsequent attempts to initiate contact will be received more favorably.

Frank O'Toole, Yuji Oshima, Eric Baudart
Noticing Things II

One of the important concepts for semi-essentialism is that of second nature. Human beings have second nature. It's the nature we make for ourselves versus the nature we’re given. The structures of social life are the structures of human nature. But second nature isn't always easy to acquire. It's an achievement.

The works of Frank, Yuji, and Eric explore the ways in which the process of naturalizing our own cultural products can sometimes create weird after-effects. The process of achieving second nature sometimes gets stuck in overdrive and can’t turn itself off.

Alice Hoffman is one of Frank O'Toole's pseudonyms

"Robin Moore never wanted to be anyone's savior. But when she sees a beautiful and innocent man mistaken for a beast, she does something she never thought she'd do: she rescues him and takes him home with her. Only there, on the tiny island where people are trying to lead a perfect suburban life, close - but not too close - to nature, does Robin begin to realize the intricacy of what it means to be human.

Second Nature is a modern fairytale about a place where all things are possible: where deer can weep, and winter ice can turn blood-red - and where love has nothing to do with common sense. It is a spellbinding story that hints at unexpected answers to timeless questions, questions about innocence and wickedness, desire and obsession."