On
Spectral Psychography
by Janice Lee
I first
had the opportunity to see Los Angeles artists Christian Cummings and Michael
Decker perform Spectral Psychography at Machine Project in September 2012. I
had heard of them years before through writer/friend Harold Abramowitz and had
been intrigued by these Ouija board performances.
Spectral
Psychography is defined as:
… a method
for psychic mark making. A Psychographer will use an adapted Ouija device
(planchette) to collaborate artistically with unseen forces. Blindfolded, the
hand forms an image while the mind remains unaware.
During a
performance at Machine Project, I was struck by the context of
this as a “performance.” Was this really
a performance? Or something else? Was this for real? Was this an elaborately
planned artists’ staging? Or were they really communicating with ghosts? As
the evening progressed, I became convinced that it didn’t really matter whether
this was a sham, but that at least for me, something was happening.
I then
invited Christian and Michael to perform at Novum,
an interdisciplinary series I co-curate with Laura Vena. The word novum is important because it’s related to
how I envision narrative and aesthetic possibility. When I think of
experimental narrative, I view it through the lens of Carl Jung’s theory of
synchronicity, relating processes of writing and reading to paranormal
processes.
Istvan
Csicsery-Ronay Jr.
writes, “As the sentences build up, we build up a world in specific dialogue,
in specific tension with our present concept of the real.” Through the labored
interaction of reading language and the world around us, one can interact with
his/her own ideological embeddedness on a profound level. Ernst Bloch uses the
term novum to describe “a moment of
newness in lived history that refreshes human collective consciousness,
awakening it from the trancelike sense of history as fated and empty, into
awareness that it can be changed... the unexpectedly new, which pushes humanity
out of its present toward the not yet realized,”... towards a “blankness of
horizon of consciousness... formed not by the past but by the future... a not
yet conscious ontological pull of the future, of a tidal influence exerted upon
by that which lies out of sight below the horizon, an unconscious of what is
yet to come.” Parallel to Badiou’s “event,” the novum derives its significance from its effect on human
consciousness. “Each instance of the Novum is a hypostatized moment of
apocalyptic cognition; and each such moment of cognition is a recognition.”
To me,
these performances become about our own constant negotiation with the unknown
and the uncertain, with our own troubled relationships with belief.
In his
new book 2500
Random Things About Me Too,
Matias Viegener remarks, “It has already bothered me that we have such a
prejudice for things that exist over things that don’t exist. It’s a failure of
ambition. It means we can’t imagine anything that isn’t already there.”
Jeffrey
Kripal dedicates his book Authors
of the Impossible
to an investigation of the paranormal as meaning. The project “is based on the
wager that new theory lies hidden in the anomalous, that the paranormal appears
in order to mock and shock us out of our present normal thinking. Seen in this
way, psychical and paranormal phenomena become the still unacknowledged,
unassimilated Other of modern thought, the still unrealized future of theory,
the fleeting signs of a consciousness not yet become a culture.” He continues:
“Such [paranormal] events are thus not just casually, occasionally, or
anecdotally anomalous. They are structurally and cognitively anomalous.”
Harvard
psychiatrist John E. Mack too illustrates how “psychical phenomena of abduction
reports violate our present epistemology and worldview.” He remarks, “[W]e have
a kind of either/or mentality. It’s either literally physical, or it’s in the
spiritual other realm, the unseen realm. What we seem to have no place for—or
we have lost the place for—are phenomena that can begin in the unseen realm,
and cross over and manifest and show up in our literal physical world.”
In
today’s world, belief has become a strange aesthetic category. This “either/or”
mentality isn’t just about physical vs. spiritual, but also real vs. not real. Is this real? Is this possible? Does science
support it?
Before
Christian and Michael’s performance, Margaret Wertheim gave a fabulous
introduction on this very idea of belief. Focusing on Dante’s writings and
ideas about Purgatory, she outlined the evolution of scientific “truth” and
belief. She elaborates in her book The
Pearly Gates of Cyberspace:
Stories about
journeys to and from the realm of the dead tend to evoke deep skepticism in we
“scientifically-minded” moderns. The question thus arises: Whatever the
exploits of the virtual Dante, did the actual historical Dante really believe in this vision of the
afterlife? Did he and his contemporaries really believe there was a vast chasm
inside the earth? Did they really believe in a terraced mountain opposite
Jerusalem? Did they really believe in a set of heavenly crystal spheres? … A
major problem, I suggest, is that the very questions raised here are
quintessentially modern. They are framed within the context of our purely physicalist paradigm, which was quite
alien to medieval mind-set.
Margaret Wertheim went so far as to state that to
ask the question of whether this is true or not is already an aberration,
already an indication of our brainwashed state that prevents us from accepting
anything as real unless it has a mathematically precise location in physical
space.
Our
inclination to categorize and ask questions often confines us into tighter and
tighter boxes, until there is less and less space for possibility and
discovery. Ufologist Jacques Vallee writes, “Mathematical theory often has to confront
the fact that two contradictory theories can explain the same data. A solution
is inevitably found not by choosing one of the contradictory theories, but by
going to the next, third level.” Ghosts don’t necessarily have to equal the pop
culture definition of ghosts. They don’t necessarily have to fit into one of
these previously created paradigms. Perhaps, they are something else entirely.
What
follows are selections from an interview with Christian Cummings and Michael
Decker on Spectral Psychography (SP), as well as photos from the evening’s
performance at Novum:
Janice Lee: How did
Spectral Psychography start? I've read that it may have started as a way to
combat artist's block but why specifically a Ouija board and this process? What
was the inspiration and impetus for this project?
Christian Cummings: In the past "Artist Block"
was used as a terse catch-all to highlight aspects of its authorship.
Specifically, that you don’t actually need ideas to
express them.
Michael Decker: And by creating a situation where the
only thing at stake is understanding. The ghosts don’t require that we
understand them. What we call artist’s block is used as inspiration.
J: I've read that you (at least you, Christian) are
somewhat skeptical of paranormal phenomena and aren't sure yourselves of what
to make of these channeled drawings. How did this interest then come about? Do
you believe that something paranormal is happening here? Do you see yourselves
as "mediums" of some sort? And how does the outcome differ with
different collaborators?
C: Something para-average is definitely happening in
spite of my beliefs. For me belief is an aesthetic category.
Tuesday’s beliefs differ from Friday’s. And on Sunday I’m agnostic. My current
theory is something like a hive mind. Not a Borg-centric uni-ego but something
more like a cosmic blogosphere. A nexus of connected intelligences publishing
their thoughts on the spectral-net simply because they can. But again, who
knows. It's Sunday.
M: We have had experiences that strongly suggest we are
talking to dead people. Specifically when given information that we can check
in the public record. At one event the deceased co-worker of an audience member
visited. They had an at-length conversation about workplace politics.
J: How would you categorize this project? It seems to
get categorized more of an art project, perhaps because you are artists, but do
you see these as artistic performances? Or something else?
M: SP is not an easy pill to swallow. Neither is it an
easy artwork to sell. What started as an afternoon experiment has become
art because it changed the way we think about art. And ghosts have become our
mentors.
C: Thankfully art
doesn't have to be art. It can be the something else.
J: How might you respond to skeptics who may believe
that these drawings are just a sham and these drawings have been planned by you
co-conspirators in advance?
C: A Ouija board and a magic marker. These
are our dirty secrets.
M: We’ve been accused of requiring complicit viewers. I
prefer the euphemism “playing along” to complicit. I like to think we ask no
more than the next artist with respect to playing along.
J: I think the
term "playing along" is important. It's especially important to keep
an open mind when witnessing your performance, whether or not the audience
member is a skeptic or believer. I found myself going back and forth during the
performance (and the duration allows for this inner dialogue I think), between
trying to "figure it all out" and just being open and observing.
M: Play I think is implied by our use of a
Ouija board. Ouija is a game marketed to children and sold in toy stores. Maybe
we have taken Ouija beyond its intended function but we do so playfully.
Complicity is a very different kind of contract than play. We're not really
interested in dictating our terms or obligating our viewers to them.
Art can be a game. Mortality and spirituality can be a game. We like to
playfully involve everyone in the room, including the ghosts.
C: Wagging between skepticism and belief is
a game, like ping-pong played on a teeter-totter. For instance, we wear
blindfolds to make SP palatable to our skeptics. We realize that taunting a
skeptic’s credulity sometimes invokes it. Using the blindfold as a
carrot-on-stick, we invite them to play with us. Similarly, BBQ places that offer boca-burgers will attract some
vegetarians (carrots!). A number of them will order ribs and then return to
their veggies the following day. I suspect here's a link between play and
overcoming dogmas. Could it be our dogmas are more flexible, temporary, and
open ended than we give them credit for?
C: Even doubting artists have ideas that appear from
“nowhere”. The Ouija is our ghost-phone. We pick it up and our ideas appear
from nowhere. There is a portion of
me believes we’re connecting to real human ghost-somethings. This is why I say
“para-average” instead of paranormal. Paranormal kind of sounds derogatory. I
don’t want to offend any ghosts.
J: Christian, you
refer to the idea of authorship. Is this related then to agency? Perhaps to the
lack of agency on the part of the spirits? And Michael, I wonder if the ghosts don't
require that we understand them, what do you think they require or want from
us?
C: Are Michael & I artists? Are we mediums,
trans-channels, diviners, extra-dimensional gatekeepers, shaman, prophets,
psychics, pranksters with a ghost-phone? Are we possessed or even remote-controlled?
Are the tools themselves haunted? Have we accessed an akashic database of
personalities stored in the ether? Do our hands move by ideomotor action and
the collective unconscious? Are we channeling ghosts, aliens, or Google’s
servers? Are they channeling us? Difficult to say who or what is expressing?
In terms of authorship,
“self-expression” is at least as para as channeling. This when self becomes an
other. Like a possession (a thing you have and a thing that has you).
M: Maybe ghosts come through the board
hoping people understand them. It’s true, more often than not the drawings are
representational. This suggests some attempt at communication on their end. As
far as what they expect from us, I'm not really sure. They seem to enjoy
leaving us with more questions than the few of ours they answer.
J: You refer to
the "unremarkable" nature of SP, and this is interesting to me
because it's one of the things I picked up at your performance at Machine
Project. I couldn't quite articulate it at the time, but things like the
attitude you maintained towards the spirits, the sort of terse and blunt
dialogue with the spirits, the sort of distance from the content of the
drawings – you didn't seem to show any emotional investment. It was one struck
that stuck me, the tone in which you addressed the spirits, sort of like the
same tone you might use to speak to a cab driver. And so now I wonder if all
this is intentional, or if you're aware of it?
C: We’ve met more tweenagers from Orange County than
tormented 19th century English maidens with unfinished business. Ghosts are people
like you and I. I like it when ghosts are referred to as “Familiars.”
M: We have been communicating with ghosts for a long
time. We sometimes forget how taboo this is for some people. But ghosts to us
are no different than the people you meet at the grocery store.
C: People at the grocery store are usually more scary.
J: Though one
thing I did notice additionally was Michael during the performance. Christian,
you say that you think if there is a psychic element here, you think Michael
may possess the gift. In my watching on the screen that was set up at Machine,
it seemed often that it was Michael's hands that were doing much of the guiding
– whether as a medium or as an impulse. And Michael, you also seemed
significantly more "worn" after the performance (though perhaps just
from performance anxiety?). I wonder C or M, if you have additional thoughts on
the "work" you're doing, ie. the actual labor and concentration that
goes into the process, what the process demands from you physically and
psychologically.
M: Yes, it's an exhausting practice. I can't explain
why. Drains in a way that feels like running a psychic marathon. People often
see me as guiding the planchette. I often feel Christian guiding it. I don't
know what more to say. Sometimes I do feel I have an idea of what’s being
rendered only to remove my blindfold and see something completely different.
Other times I think it's me because I can see the marks before they're made or
a finished drawing before it is started. These are the uncanny moments that
really excite me. Uncanny because the hand still seems to move itself.
C: Michael is a serious antennae. Over the
years we’ve cultivated a symbiosis for reading each other's energy. This makes
the process very fluid between us.
J: I'm definitely
interested in your art practices outside of SP. What are you guys working on
now? Other things you've worked on in the past of relevance? How does SP
influence your art practice as a whole? And how do other aspects of your art
practice influence SP?
C: I’ve spent the recent few years
transforming my yard into a metal foundry for crafting objects made to
out-survive our species. I’ve also been making preachy
Grungy/Garagey/R&Bish songs about overtly political themes (reviewed in
this month’s Artillery Art Magazine),
and I'm in post production on a movie recounting the Adam and Eve story. And I
have one rather-involved larger project in the works.
In terms of relating SP to my greater
practice – what I said about experiencing I as an other is
important. I call this the zero-person perspective. I now have a reflex
for recalibrating back to zero.
M: I'm currently working on a number of projects. Some of which are collaborations with other artists and some are independently studio-based practices. I approach art making as a continuous exercise for the unabashed exploration of new things. There is immense freedom in deciding that you are not an authority of what you already think you know and doing something different. Unfortunately, this isn't how the art market likes artists to behave, unless being multidisciplinary and all over the place is justified in some rhetorical fashion. For me its just a means for production and learning new things.
J: At the first performance at Machine Project, Christine Wertheim mentioned two things in her introduction. She talked a
bit about the evolution of SP and the various directions you've been able to
go. Can you talk a bit more about this evolution and history? She also used
pataphysics as a reference in talking about your work and mentioned that she
met you for the first time in the pataphysics class she was teaching at
CalArts. Can you elaborate on this relationship? I guess I'm thinking about
things like the exhaustive potential of pataphysics, the ideology of metaphor,
or a fear of the irrational that pataphysics refers to.
C: Many people
don’t realize to what extent there’s a history of artists complicating the
problem of authorship. Christine’s class followed a vein of “pataphysics” that
led us through Oulipo, Surrealism & Proto-Surrealist thinkers, and a larger
world of constraint-driven practices (with a pinch of aleatoricism thrown in
for good measure). I remember being struck by the level of acumen required to
slouch ones creative burdens. Now my
favorite libraries are the ones full of books written by people who have
nothing to say.
Janice Lee is the author of
KEROTAKIS (Dog Horn Publishing, 2010)
and
Daughter (Jaded Ibis, 2011). She also
has several chapbooks
Red Trees, Fried
Chicken Dinner (Parrot/Insert Press, September 2012), and
The Other Worlds (Eohippus Labs, June
2012). Her newest project,
Damnation,
is forthcoming from Penny-Ante Editions in 2013. She currently lives in Los
Angeles where she is Co-Editor of the online journal
[out of nothing], Co-Founder of the
interdisciplinary arts organization
Strophe (which houses the curated
series
Novum), Feature Reviews Editor at
HTMLGIANT, and Founder/CEO of
POTG
Design. She
currently teaches Interface Culture at CalArts. She can be found at
http://janicel.com.
