On Boredom
For a little while now, Sinthome at Larval Subjects has been posting excerpts from Spinoza, sometimes with annotations. I’ve been merely a lurker for these, but I’ve appreciated them, in part because they’ve reminded me of the debts I owe Spinoza.
A White Bear, over at Is There No Sin In It?, has continued her wonderful series of revisionist definitions of words with a post on boredom, following her posts on pornography and decadence. I’m going to tackle the subject briefly here, a little in the style of Spinoza, and perhaps write more on boredom later. Honestly, A White Bear’s creative and persistent emphasis on the definition of words has led me to wonder whether “word events,” symposiums, might emerge as a complement to book events.
AWB’s definition centers on boring artworks, such as films by Michelangelo Antonioni. Actually, she’s not bored by films like L’Avventura, finding them “hypnotic” and “seductive,” and neither am I. As far as I can tell, Antonioni is atmospheric, much like Henry James in his later novels. Sometimes, this kind of art is called “plotless” because the plot is focused, subtler…more fleeting, more quiet.
There are two kinds of atmospheric art: there’s minimalism, and there’s impressionism. Minimalism reacts against modernity by trying to batter down the walls surrounding consciousness. It repeats itself until it is heard, if it is a piece of music, almost like a beeping alarm clock; it secedes violently from the endless series of figuration, if it is an abstract painting. It is the natural child of movements like surrealism, because it is associative for the audience. Rothko’s reds, the tones of an Aphex Twin record, or the harsh voids in Robbe-Grillet, are gradually pearled over by memory and thought.
Impressionistic works, like L’Avventura or Hermann Broch’s The Death of Virgil, substitute imagery for narrative; the ideological content may be the same, but our experience differs. They are equivalent to those showerheads that strain the water through what looks like a broad chrome sunflower, instead of spitting it out a nozzle.
***
Something that bores me is something that, without doing permanent injury, constrains me without compensation. By compensation, I specifically mean the satisfaction of an appetite: a physical appetite, or the abstract desire for increased power of action.
I could say more, but not without taking a certain ironic risk.
Have a good night. -JK
Antonioni’s my fave. although i don’t think it’s all imagery, however much i’d like to believe Monica Vitti is the center of the world.
how does the imagery substitute for narrative while expressing ideological content? is the content there at all? doi. I suppose my questions are basic.
anyways, i like the breakdown. very efficient. yay!
PS. the last paragraph: scary. increased power. even scarier. isn’t there value in constraint in itself?
I definitely don’t think Antonioni is all images either, which is why I described him in terms of subtler, quieter, more fleeting plots, rather than as plotless.
The pacing and cutting of a movie like L’Avventura makes it a little like a series of stills. Those certainly have content, just as a painting or photograph has content. For example, the way that the ocean fills part of every shot, when the travelers are in their boat, is a silent way of juxtaposing their banal conversation with a memento mori. You might compare the way L’Avventura develops with the plot-driven story of alienation in something like Requiem for a Dream.
PS. the last paragraph: scary. increased power. even scarier. isn’t there value in constraint in itself?
Power of action is a little different from power pure and simple, which usually means power over others. It’s related to “freedom,” but here (like before, in the second post on hedonism), I’m talking about the difference between internal and external constraints. Somebody may feel strongly impelled to do something, and be prevented; that will make them bored and resentful, even if feelings of impulsion (to eat, to move around, to speak, to create) do not really map onto the abstract field of possibilities we associate with “freedom” (in the sense of “freedom of choice”).
your explanation of l’avventura as sublte fleeting plots makes sense; although i don’t see how it’s different from minimalism in your description: “It is the natural child of movements like surrealism, because it is associative for the audience.” To me impressionism is more associative than minimalism. am i stating something obvious? ugh, i’m not used to substantive commenting.
P.S. the diff between internal and eternal constraints clarifies things for me in terms of power, but they’re pretty closely related right? i.e.self-fulfilling prophecies, internalized hatred, sabotage.
I’m not sure if I’d call impressionism more associative than minimalism; the best way I can think of to describe the difference is that some works of art are associative and lush. For example, I would describe both Aphex Twin and Air as “ambient,” but obviously Air is not a minimalist group. The concept of texture, or (in written works) of lyricism sometimes also helps illuminate this difference.
Self-fulfilling prophecies, internalized hatred, or self-sabotage are all internal. They seem very substantially different from things that produce boredom, such as being stuck at work, or being stuck in a classroom.