Mikhail Bakhtin History of Laughter.

Mikhail Bakhtin is an important figure who’s investigations into laughter and humour is what I consider to be central to my concepts. Particularly (as I have already mentioned) his interest into ‘The Carnivalesque’. The carnivalesque does not signify a festival but an idea of the caricature of life, which leans towards hierarchy and authority. the carnivalesque looks at an absence and a need to create a forbidden laughter.

“Bakhtin’s carnivalesque invokes a laughter linked to the overturning of authority; it is that particular folk humour that has always existed and has never merged with the official culture of the ruling classes”. 

Its this challenging of authority using the example of carnivals that I find so interesting. and is in line with my own works investigation into authority, but more closely my investigation into the passive objects such as railings, bollards, even flowers on a table that act as systems for division. When examining my chosen objects and really thinking about why I chose them the (what now seems obvious) link between them was their discretional authority, how they are suggestions of control. In particular the railings which I have chosen for the degree show focusses much more into ownership, passive territory checkpoints. This to me feels like an intellectual equivalent of dogs pissing of lamp posts to mark territory. An example I keep being reminded of is when I walk around towns and can see a distinctive line in property through grass cuttings. How one side of a detached house that share a front garden has cut their grass to the line of where their property ends.

 

The Comic Mask – Mikhail Bakhtin

“Bakhtin calls the mask ‘the most complex theme of fold-culture’; it is certainly central to Carnival. Typically, he writes of it almost always in positive terms, as an enlargement, freeing the individual from class and even from gender. That our word ‘mask’ should derive from the arabic for clown, Maskharat, makes explicit the links to laughter – yet the mask may also, as in Ensor, be used to conceal; and in children it arouses a simultaneous fascination and fear, recalling its origin in magical practices. In many carnivals, the mask appears in both ‘Ugly’ and ‘ Beautiful’ types. This survey emphasises the darker, more infernal aspect of the mask.

 

The Carnivalesque

the Carnivalesque is a term derived from the carnival; “a period of public revelry at a regular time each year, typically during the weekbefore Lent in Roman Catholic countries, involving processions, music, dancing, and the use of masquerade: the culmination of the week-long carnival |Mardi Gras is the last day of carnival | [ as modifier ] : a carnival parade.• an exciting or riotous mixture of something: the whole evening was a carnival of fun.”

“the carnivalesque originally intended to parody existing social orders or to reaffirm the authority of those in power, and in so doing it has always drawn attention to that which is most prominent and also that which is marginalised within a given community, opening up a space of visibility for the “normally-invisible.” 

What does the term ‘Carnivalesque’ mean to me and my work? I am using Carnivalesque theory focusing on  its celebration of the irrational, vulgar, inane and sexual. I look at the carnivalesque as a combat against popular, commercial and institutional orders. The theory goes hand in hand with my work in the way I create objects that I feel drives desires and subversion of authority. The boldness of my work demands more importance than that of normal behaviour through objects. this transfers to my audience, my work seeks to become more important than political and socially constructed authorities. inversion aspect of the carnivalesque where the norms of society are reversed, liberating participants through reversal of accepted order.

However there are many scholars that believe that the ideas of the carnivalesque are only temporarily that it makes no change to social order or hierarchy, that it is merely and illusion. That once left the space or site that the world reverts and nothing has changed. I disagree, as I believe that with my work people are enticed into its viewing to then be effected in questioning the material structures of surrounding authoritative objects.

“the carnivalesque represents a liminal zone that offers neither genuine freedom nor genuine control. Instead, it offers the possibility of a temporary lifting of the moral curtain followed by an embarrassed or guilty return to the moral code.”

Loris Cecchini

 

“power is everywhere and nowhere at the same time”  I am coming to realise that, intentional or not my work addresses an elitism and a hierarchy of culture. This can be seen in my placement within the university campus (many read into this being a symbology towards the “man” of the uni). Or as I see it, through my choosing of objects and distortion into their IMAGE, FUNCTION and MATERIAL. I see my work as a dismantling of elitism through introducing Carnivalesque aspects to my work which addresses the elitism with a safety valve of humour. Perhaps the reason I can’t fully answer the golden question of “why choose that object” (other than cause it was in my way) is because I choose an object less for what it is, but rather what it points to.

Its interesting reading into Rachel Whiteread’s in how she constructs these large works to be stealth pieces. To no bombard the place of exhibit. This is totally different to how I want my work to project to the audience. I want that shock factor to be so explosive that the viewer then questions the materials or fakery of other authoritative objects in and around the degree show. I think that because I plan to exhibit my work within the studios rather than in public (outdoor) space I need to be loud, I can’t be timid in the work as it has to have a point to being inside. I revel in the idea of the composure that accompanies a private view exhibition environment that my works jokiness will, as I have already said, be a safety valve that lets off the pressure whilst undermining the authority of the chosen object its mimicking. Whiteread uses the same processes of casting as I do myself. yet she used them to construct ghosts, where as my devices are to construct loudness through the moulds, that captures the essence of the original object.

‘Las Meninas’ De Velazquez

‘Las Meninas’ De Velazquez

The painting ‘Las Meninas’ by De Velazquez has much in common with my investigation into subverting of authority. The carnivalesque quality the painting has, becomes linked to issues of power. This is because the purpose of carnival is for a subversion, “To invert, and parody static social structures and authority, opening a transformative space of ambiguity that allows for new possibilities.” 
the carnivalesque aspect of the painting in using the definition of the carnival to create power shifts within the painting itself between the monarchy, in the way the parents are a reflection (second best) and the spotlight is cast onto the artist, daughter and midget. “Carnival suspends hierarchical rank, norms, and privileges, and creates an alternative world of equality, ambiguity, and transformation.” Which is one main aspect of my own work, perhaps the lucidity of my objects in their material, function and image is much more in line with carnivalesque than previously imagined. My works theatrical qualities, the carnival occupies a space of liminality. “Functions of the carnivalesque is to act as a safety valve, allowing some of the The paintings own authority that it both presents and questions is what Interests me most. The unknowing of where you as viewer sit within the painting, and the illusionary ambiguity which is occurred through devices within the painting. such as gazes and reflections. Devices that blur our distinction of our world.

“built-up tension produced by extreme formality to escape.” This quote in line with the painting and the subverting is interesting. A time of hierarchy in the monarchy, and the formalities that follow this duty. Velazquez depicted dwarfs (heavily related to carnivals) into the painting, perhaps this was a subversion to counterbalance the paintings formalist qualities. an attempt to counter-balance. Dwarfs and jesters were the only ones allowed to cross the line of formality to royalty and mock them. I find it interesting that from reading about Velazquez’s ‘Balthasar Carlos and a Dwarf’, where draft side by side a future king who’s stance is tradition with monarchy is described as “exhibiting the carnivalesque characteristics of the grotesque body – dynamic, fluid and open.” This painting is interesting in the way the Velazquez mimics the dwarf in a subverted image of the monarch. This, through the use of a rattle and an apple as a parody to the symbols of worldly power: the sceptre and orb. In a way my work acts as a dwarf or jester in the context of Velazquez’s paintings, a fragment to bridge many different factors as with ‘La Meninas’