Oh Long John
Oh Long Johnson
Oh Don Piano
Why I eyes ya
All the live long day
-- Early zoolinguistic folk song.
Try to describe it:
The background is black.
The foreground, a frenzy
of motion and colour.
Divided into thirds, the
bottom third is the most empty and yet it's possibly the most
meaningful section,
grounding what's above with three
quick orange taps of the brush, like three dots, an ellipsis.
And a flurry of colour above
the
brushtaps. Chaotic, yet sparse:
Green in the top quarter
intersecting with and becoming curved lines of white below. And
more orange adjacent the white.
And the colours
blending. White becoming through velocity and fade a kind of
blue. And green blurring into tints of yellow (these draw your
eye up to
the
top left quarter). White merging with orange, becoming red and
pink.
Long fat lines overlaid.
And three orange strokes
intersecting, positioned between the first and second dots of the
ellipsis, leading from the virtual emptiness of the bottom third into
the frenzy above. Moving from a sustained pause,
originating within and then growing out of that pause, exploding from
that pause into a potential for infinite meaning, these strokes are
strangely
reminiscent of the Japanese character "to" which, in as far as you
understand Japanese (which is to say not at all), means "katana," or
"sword."
Also, the strokes also
remind you
of "ryoku," another Japanese character. "Ryoku" translates into
English as "power."
Or
maybe the strokes are a mirror-reversed
"kyu"-- which
in Japanese is the number nine.
And you like the idea of the
strokes representing the words/concepts "sword" and "power," but you
don't
really know what
a mirror-reversed nine could possibly mean.
However, in Roman script the
character used to depict the number 9 is somewhat reminiscent of the
magatama, a kind of bead or jewel used in the Shinto
religion to represent among other things the human spirit, nature, or
certain protective deities. The magatama shape also looks like
half of the yin-yang symbol which combines a 6 and a 9 in a curled
embrace. And the yin-yang also looks strikingly like some of the
symbols used to represent Pisces, the fish, the astrological sign that
represents the
reconciliation of opposites (in some depictions numbers 9 and 6 curve
away from each other, mirroring each other yet connected by a
thread; in other depictions the 6 and the 9 face each other, almost
sexually-- and in both 96 and 69 the curling thickness at the top and
bottom of each of each respective numerical symbol represents the
head of a fish while the thin curve trailing away from the head, the
tail)--
and this is the sign at the end of the sequence that both concludes and
contains the entirety of the zodiac, the circular flux of the
universe. The full stop, the recapitulation, the 30-point.
Also, these three strokes
before you are reminiscent of the Greek symbol pi which, of course, you
use when
you need to
represent the number Pi (which isn't all that often, but sometimes
it does come up). And of course
the number Pi introduces into this work concepts of transcendence,
infinity, circles
and spheres
divided with their centres everywhere. And also the imperfection
of the
real world and the paradoxical perfection of the unending hidden in the
imperfect. Also a reminder that every number is infinite, and of
the potential that within an infinite unchanging yet nonrepeating
matrix every bit
of data in the universe could be secretly encoded.
And you quickly note that
there are
three strokes-- no more and no less-- and
that Pi begins with a number 3.
However, the structure
implied
by the brush strokes, when you look at it more closely, it suddenly
dawns on you that it may actually be
composed of more than three lines-- possibly. And the number Pi
escapes
being the
number 3, is more than 3, while still remaining mostly 3.
And the orange linework also
looks like it's making something that's sort of
like a house-- maybe. And Heidegger famously said that language
is
the house of being....
Each stroke of colour
attacking with force, and then as that force weakens,
trailing off.
And now the top third of the
image-- frenzy closer to the left of the
frame than to the right-- not quite centred-- as if the
position of this mass of interlocking lines were itself in some sense
significant.
And a white line descending
at about an 80-degree angle-- and then it quickly banks and bends into
an upturn.
And how the colours at
first seem to be a jumble. A chaos of curves
overlaid upon curves, swooping brush strokes.
But looking closely you
discover that it's not
chaos at all. Just chaos at first glance, randomness to the
unprepared mind.
But there seems to be a
plan. A meaning.
The colours suggest
life, motion, the process of thought. A tree, a sun, someone
running-- these things viewed from all angles simultaneously in motion
and still, a
snapshot of three-dimensional activities taken from the fourth
dimension and then flattened down to two.
Hypercubism.
(The absolute stillness of
the mad frenzy of the world as viewed from outside time.)
A code with whose key is
hidden in the recesses of the impenetrable.
(Jackson Pollock on DMT,
channeling the Mandelbrot set.)
Something indefinable buried
in this
pattern of lines and swoops and colours, and this indefinable something
is very near to you and very
far
away
at the same time.
An intimate presence
forever deferred and differed.
Yet it's also an intrinsic
part
of what you are.
(Not quite at the centre of
who you are, related to the centre, almost at the centre, but still
somewhere removed.)
(A nebula in deep space.)
(The flight paths of birds.)
(A storm of some sort--
exteriour or interiour.)
And it's at moments like
these when you come up against something that language cannot
encapsulate-- something there aren't even any inadequate words to
describe, let alone adequate
ones-- and so you can't really even fathom
what it is that you're looking at... it's at moments like these (and
there are very few of them in life, really), moments where both
subjectivity and objectivity fail because you're faced with something
almost completely and totally Other... moments like this where the only
thing you actually
can do, your only recourse in the face of... this... is to stare
goggle-eyed and awestruck and under your breath quietly whisper:
"Cool."
What I'm talking about here
is a painting by an Asian elephant named Kamala. Her name means
"Lotus Flower."
Kamala lives and paints in
the Calgary Zoo. Once a week, she is taken to a special area in
the zoo,
given paints, a canvas, and a brush, and then she's more-or-less left
alone to paint. If she decides to paint, she picks up a brush and
begins. If she doesn't want to paint, behaving just like any
artist, she doesn't
paint. She starts and stops her paintings on more-or-less her own
terms-- the only aspect of her painting that seems to be closely
regulated is the time in which she paints.
(And that Kamala appears to
paint
at
scheduled times is probably just a matter of convenience
for her keepers-- after all, it would be extremely difficult for
them to arrange an environment for her where she could be free to
paint any hour of the day as the
mood struck her. For one thing, how could
she
signal that she wanted to paint? And if she wanted to paint at,
say, 5am Sunday night, suddenly everyone would be scrambling to
accommodate her needs. Either that or there would have to be a
special 24-hour unit always present to deal with her artistic
whims. After all, things would have to be set up-- or at the
least, if things didn't have to be set up, a team would have to be
called in to observe and record her behaviour for the sake of
research. This kind of thing
just seems easier to do at prearranged times.)
And it's worth noting that Kamala, as of
this writing, is the
only
elephant who chooses
her own colours when she paints.
And I was given one of her
paintings as a
Christmas gift in 2005. It was a gift from my parents.
The title of the painting is
"Whooper." It was given this title by staff at the
Calgary Zoo and it is
"signed" by Kamala-- a stamp in the pattern of one of her hooves has
been made by her keepers and is dipped in paint and applied to each of
her paintings.
(Too bad there's
currently no way to allow Kamala to name her own paintings. Of
course, doing so would involve teaching her human language which might
be
difficult, if not impossible. But it still may be worth trying.)
For a long time I have been
aware of the existence of animal art-- I've known that gorillas and
apes and elephants, and other animals too, have been known to paint--
and I'd seen a Kamala on the wall of my cousins' place in 2004-- but
before receiving "Whooper" as a gift I'd never really had an
opportunity
to actually study and appreciate a work of animal art. Even
at my cousins' house, while I stood fixated by their painting, it was
still only for a few minutes. I hadn't had time to really see the painting. But
now, in 2005, I finally had the chance.
And almost every day since
then, I've looked at "Whooper" for a few moments, awestruck.
(Some of the scattered
observations above are only a few of the more interesting and possibly
just plain weird things I've thought of while looking at the canvas.)
And as far as I can tell,
Kamala
is an
excellent
artist and "Whooper" is an exciting painting.
In fact, it's better
than most paintings done by human beings, these days.
"Whooper" is fresh, alive,
vital, beautiful, and mysterious. I have no idea what it "means,"
or if its "meaning" can even be determined, or if anyone can even use a
vocabulary of "meaning" in relation to it-- because, of course,
"meaning" is a human concept. So can it even be said to apply to
something like
"Whooper"?
And so, part of the problem
with
approaching "Whooper" (or any work of art by any non-human species) is
that since it's a painting by an elephant,
there's no actual language
anyone can use to adequately wrestle with its existence. In a
very important sense you can't describe it at all, let alone interpret
it, because the only ways anyone can experience and understand it come
from the realm of the
human, and "Whooper" does not originate within the human sphere.
In a sense, you can't even call it a "painting," an "artwork," or even
a
"creation" because these are all human terms and concepts and so in a
very important sense can never apply to "Whooper." But the use of
these concepts and terms is also inevitable when considering
"Whooper" because they're the best terms we've got-- leaving us in a
situation where the
only way to really understand "Whooper" would be to approach it through
Kamala's language, her experience, her context-- but these things are
(at least currently) inaccessible to us-- to put it mildly.
But more about this later.
One of the most fascinating
things about "Whooper" is how it seems to be the result of a slight
modification of Kamala's natural tendencies. For years now,
scientists have observed elephants in the wild making patterns and
lines in sand
or dirt with their
trunks or with sticks-- and then other elephants will come by and look
at
these patterns.
Also in the wild, when elephant herds come upon elephant bones,
sometimes certain members of the herds will take
these bones in their trunks and lay them out in what seems to be a kind
of
deliberate order. And then other elephants will walk by, looking
at
the bones in a procession.
This behaviour implies
volition, a kind of language, a will to communicate... something.
And like these other
elephants, Kamala makes structures out of lines and
representational patterns, except her medium is different.
Therefore, doesn't "Whooper"
imply
a kind of
volition in Kamala? And with volition, intent-- even if this
intent
may
remain forever unknowable-- because the creation of a painting, of
lines and patterns seemingly deliberately laid out on a
surface, implies a will to communicate. And all communication is
the
result of some kind of language.
And all language creates art
and in turn all art is language.
And art and language are the
products of minds, identities, selves-- that in turn exist in language
and as language, even if that language sometimes seems to stretch
beyond itself. (But who's to say that's not just the experience
of another kind of
language?)
Bottom line is: language is
the result of
the mind, and the mind is the result of language-- and "Whooper," as
(for
lack of a better word) art, is the byproduct of both a mind and a
language. Consciousness. Sentience.
But can I ever know if I'm
correct?
How can I determine
this? Whom can I ask?
I can't even definitively
determine if my fellow human beings-- creatures I can pin against a
wall and, with cigarette dangling from lower lip, interrogate
face-to-face by employing a common language-- I can't even determine if
they have minds.
And even if they tell me what all their stories
and paintings and pieces of music are supposed to convey, I can't
prove that they aren't lying, or that they've deviated from an earlier
plan, or that they've simply forgotten what they were supposed to've
meant. Or even if the "language" I'm hearing escaping their lips
means to them what it means to me. And so if I can't definitively
know the vague motivations of my own
inscrutable species, how can I know the consciousness of an elephant?
So is "Whooper" actually
the result of a will to communicate?
And if it is, what's being
communicated?
An idea? A
landscape? A Shape? Motion?
Is "Whooper" about an
internal state, an emotion? Or is it a representation of
something external, something seen by Kamala beyond her canvas as she
paints? Or a memory?
Do the layers of paint,
lines laid upon lines-- does their layering suggest something? Is
the fact that the greens have been placed overtop the oranges
significant? And what about the places where the colours
blend? How are the colours of "Whooper" connected in
Kamala's mind? Do they exist in relation to each other in
consonance, or do they imply opposition? (And in this context,
what about
the areas where the colours blend?) After all, she does
choose the colours she paints with-- so the logical assumption would
seem to
be that, to her at least, the colour choice must be significant,
somehow.
Also, elephants have very
bad eyesight. And her brain interprets the world differently than
mine. So is what I see-- all those lines and structures--
what Kamala sees? What does "Whooper" look like to her?
Is it a face? Another
elephant? Several faces?
A landscape?
What would all those the
whites and oranges and
greens look like when filtered through elephant eyes?
Also, what would she title
"Whooper" if she had possession of words? (Remember that
"Whooper"
is the title given to her painting by human beings.) Or, if she
does have words-- but words that are "words"-- a series of signifying
codes that only elephants understand and we can never perceive-- if she
does have "words," what has
she titled it?
I have no idea.
And I can never know.
However, maybe "Whooper"
isn't the result of a will to communicate anything at all. Maybe
it's an example of
some
sort of instinctual, automatic behaviour.
But if "Whooper" is the
result of instinct-- what does that imply about our own drive to
produce art?
Is all communication just
instinct? After all, Kamala is an animal and human beings are
animals. And human beings communicate-- or try to, anyway-- it
seems
wired into us. So why not another species of animal? We all
mark our territories using sounds and scratchings-- it's just that
human
territories seem to be, at certain moments, far more abstract and
complex than,
say, "This is my tree" and "This is my mate." Although we must
never forget that often human communications are
exactly that, and nothing more.
And so, sometimes language
seems
like
it is little more than a sophisticated, instinctual, physical and
automatic animal behaviour. Something like extremely
sophisticated birdcalls, or complex pheromone traces left against the
walls
of a cave.
And however abstract the
territories being marked, the
marking of
territories may not necessarily imply any kind of volition on the part
of the marker. And they may not imply a sense of self and/or, in
extreme cases,
transcendence.
Let's look at a simple
example: birds. But this example can apply to other forms of
animal life as well, both mammalian and non-mammalian.
Even though birds
employ a kind of instinctive communicative mechanism that we could dub
"language"-- in that it communicates simple territorial boundaries--
this
mechanism does not seem to
signal a sense of self.
Birds, of course, use
birdcalls to define their territories and desires (which is another
kind of terretorial delimitation), and we can define
birdcalls as a
kind of "music" and therefore as a kind of language, a series of sounds
that encode
and transfer information to other birds-- information that seems
to almost exclusively signal territorial boundaries and mating desires,
and also warnings of attack (or the violation of physical terretorial
boundaries), as well as defensive threat (or the ressertion of physical
terretories). And in a sense, this "music" could
also be
described as being metaphorical because it represents
different desires on behalf of the birds that employ it-- birdcalls are
representational and not completely literal because birds
are not chains of twittering sounds.
Now, it's
important to keep in mind that in at least one sense all language is
metaphor-- all language represents something that it is
not. And it is in this sense that birdcalls do fall within the
realm of a kind of
language. And so do the gruntings of apes, the barkings of dogs,
and
the sounds elephants make with their trunks. And it is also
important to note that, possibly, consciousness is also a kind of
metaphorical structure, and
so is the sense of self-- and so, maybe birdcalls and other
instinctual territory sounds and signals are related to an innate
sense of self. This is because if language creates
self, and if the use of metaphor is a sign of language (maybe the only
sign of language-- a sign of a sign or a metaphor of a metaphor),
then it is possible that birds, and indeed all animals that employ
metaphoric codes for territories-- including elephants-- posses senses
of self. (Also, it is just as possible that all language already
stems from the self.) And if that's the case, hasn't the line
between human
beings and all other animals, in a very deep sort of
phenomenal-consciousness way, already and always been blurred?
Maybe it has, but to what
degree?
In many ways, it's
impossible to determine this. However when
considering both the existence and the placement of this line, I
believe one of the most important things to focus on is the issue of
conscious choice.
Do, for example, birds
choose
to employ their territorial signals? Do they choose to sing, or
is
their singing an automatic response to a situation?
Birds don't seem to choose
anything-- and the potential for conscious choice is important when
determining the existence of what we would call a self. It is the
self-reflexivity of conscious choice that indicates structures that can
recognize themselves as being selves. Without a self, there can
be no
conscious choice. However, birds seem to respond automatically,
like
robots-- even when employing chains of signs we can choose to define as
being in some sense both metaphoric and linguistic. Birds do not
seem to exhibit conscious choice. But,
then
again,
at this stage who can say?
Also, do the higher (or
lower)
primates have control over their territorial "linguistic"
impulses? Do they
choose? Again, they don't seem to. But, then again, at this
stage who can say? Because sometimes the very high primates do
seem to exhibit conscious choice.
(But when higher primates
learn
language, something definately does seem to change inside them, and
something more like what we
could call a "self" begins to emerge. But that language is
given to them from outside, from us, and does not originate within
them. Maybe this is somehow important, maybe it's not.)
And also, do we human beings
actually have
control,
exhibit conscious choice? At certain times we do, and (even
though we'd like to deny it) at certain times we don't. But
still, at certain times we do.
And in the case of
Kamala's paintings there is a clear element of choice present in her
desire to work, her desire to communicate whatever it is she is
communicating. (The same could possibly be said of primate animal
art-- and of probably most, of not all, other animal art.
Probably.) Basically, if "Whooper" is
the result of instinctive, automatic mechanisms, why does Kamala
actively choose colours? And why does she choose when to start
and stop painting? And why does she refuse to paint on certain
days?
Only a self can choose
to communicate, can choose to start and can choose to stop, can refuse
to do a task. Even
if this self is the result of natural instinctual processes, signaling
its existence through a complicated series of territorial codes.
Therefore, "Whooper" must be
the
product of
a
being that possesses a sense of choice, and therefore a sense of
self. It is a deliberately created artifact, the creation of
which has been initiated by its creator-- much in the
same way that gorillas who learn sign language choose both when and to
whom to
communicate. And it's worth noting that some of these gorillas
paint as well.
(However, if communication is
instinctual, does that really change its nature and what its existence
implies at
all?)
And therefore, "Whooper"
closes a
gap, builds a bridge between at least two species. Or maybe
strengthens a bridge that was already there.
Granted, certain bridges
already exist
between all the species-- especially the mammalian species, but other
species as well. Physical similarities abound: lots of animals
share the same numbers
of
eyes and/or limbs, and where the eyes and limbs do not numerically
match,
at least almost all animals usually have eyes and/or limbs. Also,
all
animals are housed in some form of skin, or at least posses other kinds
of physical shells-- like exoskeletons. Most
animals also have blood, and the ones that don't have "blood" as such
still
rely on a fluid that transfers nutrients around the body. And
let's not forget about the seeming ubiquity of DNA, genes, and the
nervous system. However, these
similarities, as well as many others, as significant as they are, are
still ultimately superficial. They're
physical attributes that have a pragmatic purpose: physical survival in
a physical
world. They do not contain possibilities for self awareness and
transcendence.
However, the tendency to
mark and perceive territories may
contain possibilities for
self-awareness and transcendence-- or at least a potential for a sense
of self (which may
be the same thing as transcendence).
After all,
what is a territory if not a
statement of individuality, an "I am here," or "this is mine," or "this
belongs to us" (the collective containing the individual
as
well-- the
group behaving as one, subordinating the individual "I"-- which,
however, is
still present, having been translated into a group "I." A
collective "I"-- a "we"-- is an "I"
nonetheless)-- and one cannot make a statement proclaiming
individuality without having a sense of self-- of some sort--
right? The territorial marker
signifies the presence of an entity through the generation of a
statement of that
entity's existence. This statement is made through the creation
of borders around territories the entity
sees itself as owning. This results in a kind of structure that
requires the entity to defining what "I am" and what is "beyond
me." This also applies to intellectual, mental territories like
ideas as well. The conscious choice to do this is something that,
so far, only humans and a few other animals seem to be able to
do. So far.
And "Whooper" stakes out a
kind of territory, using a kind of language.
Therefore, "Whooper" forces
us to
recognize that
language and self are not the sole property of homo sapiens.
After all, I can paint and
so can Kamala. I make lines
on
smoothe surfaces, and so
does she. I use my hands, she uses her trunk (an academic
distinction). I decide when to start and stop, she decides when
to start and stop. I choose my own colours, and so does she.
And her markings and my
markings, because they are markings, both stake out territories.
Hopefully they are
intellectual
territories, inner territories that establish boundaries around who we
are, rendering us in relief against the universe, against all others,
all the beings that are not us, that populate the realms of our
senses--
and thus making them, by virtue of their existence with the field of
our
perceptions, parts of us also. Territories that while
differentiating us from them and each other also interact with the
perceivers of our work, subtly infiltrating them and
changing their perceptions and identities, blurring boundaries between
us and them through the mechanism of text, even if this blurring is an
extension
of some sort of innate territory-building instinct that keeps us all
seperate. After all,
that's what the establishment of territorial boundaries
is for-- seperation-- physical survival-- "keep away from me (or us) or
I (or we)
will kill you" or "here I am over here." However, if language in
all
its forms is
an extension of some sort of innate territory building instinct, it is
an extension that moves beyond the animalistic pragmatism of physical
survival, broaching on the neighbourhood of infinity, because this
behaviour, our
propensity for marking, for making traces of aspects of ourselves,
for extending and then locking our identities in time and space, seems
to
imply (in both me and Kamala) a desire to communicate, and this
desire for communication implies a possibility in both of us for the
wielding of the ephemeral.
This is because language is not concrete,
it is not
physical. Language is ephemeral, and it is in that ephemerality
that the potential for the self and infinity lies.
(Think of it this way: all
language both creates and delimits ideas, but at the same time points
beyond that delimitation.
Beyond
being a statement of the individuality of a thinker, the act of
thinking or wielding language itself creates territories by drawing
borders around concepts-- this is necessary because all concepts,
before they are encoded
within language, are very nebulous and inexpressible. Picture a
pie
that represents every possible idea that can be thought-- they're all
in there, in this pie, but we can't recognize them, locate them or
define them. However, if you cut a chunk out of the pie, the act
of
cutting the chunk establishes a territorial boundary around some of the
pie-- delimits an idea or set of ideas. And then you cut again,
either
within the piece you've already cut out, honing your idea, or
somewhere else in the pie in order to formulate a new idea. Of
course
these boundaries are all subjective, vague, and very artificial-- like
physical territorial boundaries-- and even the chunks cut out of the
pie
can be cut into even smaller and smaller chunks-- like, again, you can
do with physical territorial boundaries. And all the chunks
everyone
has ever cut out of the pie can be rearranged and mixed together, and
even even placed inside other chunks, merging with them only to be cut
into different pieces, indefinitely. And there are huge areas of
the pie that have never been cut out yet because in order to cut them
out you first have to cut out certain other pieces, for some reason.
And the pie is not really a
pie
but an amorphous, ever shifting mush, and the all the boundaries in
this mush are always in flux, always provisional and impinging upon
each other, and largely dependent upon the perspectives of all the
people cutting up and rearranging the chunks. Because you can't
have boundaries, or territories, without the work of territory-makers,
each of whom has his or her own perspective that informs each
territorial delimitation.
However, once you visualize
this strange "pie," you can also begin to visualize a world beyond it
because the metaphor of the pie also delimits the idea of
language-as-a-territory and therefore points to something beyond it,
because you can never have a territory without there being something
beyond it. (Each of the territory-makers is both part of and
outside of the pie.) This can be seen as a kind of metaphor for
the transcendent potential inherent within language. Once you
delimit something it is difficult not to try to imagine something
beyond the thing that has been delimited. Therefore, if the pie
represents all the thoughts that a single individual (you) can think,
the very existence of the pie points to something other than you--
because you can always visualize something beyond the pie-- a table, or
other pies, or an infinite void, or something. And if the pie
represents all the thoughts than can be thought by the human race,
suddenly the pie implies the existence of non-human thinkers, for the
same reason. And so on, to infinity and beyond.
(This, of course, is a very
simple example.)
Of course the notion of
transcendence is formulated within language-- which is paradoxical
because the only "real" transcendence is the transcendence beyond
language (or the self, which may as well be the same thing because the
self expresses itself through language to the degree that it may very
well be language-- or at least it tries to understand itself through
and formulate itself as language). Therefore the transcendent,
the not-me, the thing that exists outside of my language, the other,
expresses itself through my language-- this brings the other into the
fold of the self, into me-- while at the same time reminding me that
it, the other, is other-- but at the same time challenging me to reach
beyond myself in order to understand it. The problem is that the
other, no matter how close it may seem, is infinitely far away.
And of course my example
above has been ridiculous and totally inadequate-- precisely because
it's an
attempt to use language to express the inexpressible-- and so is an
enactment of how language both refers to itself and things beyond
itself at the same time. The example of the pie explains nothing,
but at the same time it almost seems to point to something significant,
if in a provisional, inaccurate way.)
Language may have a physical basis-- the
matter
of the brain, the synapses, chemical reactions-- but it still
contains an aspect that moves beyond physicality, an
aspect that is
intangible and exists on a
level of non-physical abstraction. Ideas may originate in
matter-- the body of the thinker, the medium of transference-- but they
also exist in another state, a non-physical state that, while it
is bound to the matter of both the conceiver and the preceptor, is also
some other place-- a place that, technically speaking, probably can't
even be called a "place."
And it is this aspect of
language use that is the most wonderful, that both springs from the
self
and creates the self-- and if it springs from a territorial drive, it
almost immediately moves beyond a simple, pragmatic code for species
survival into the territory of metaphor and volition. And if it
comes from without, it becomes even more wondrous and awesome-- because
where it came from in that case will probably remain an eternal
mystery. And infinite regresson of effects with no first cause.
Because sometimes
language doesn't seem
to be the result of instinct and wiring. Sometimes language seems
more like a learned behaviour-- something we
picked up by accident a long time ago that we've turned out to be
extremely receptive to. After all, if language is instinctual,
why then do babies not eventually learn to read, write, and speak on
their own. Sure, they make sounds that seem to communicate
desires, but these seem more like instinctive reactions to stimuli
than a complex language that results in self-creation. And when
babies
are left to
their own devices the sounds they make do not seem become any sort of
useful
language. Babies must be taught to read, write, and speak by
others who already posses the abilities of reading, writing, and
speech. This implies that language comes into the individual from
the outside, and that the sense of self is not instinctual, but instead
something else.
(Also, the sounds that
babies make-- like the meowing of cats-- may be largely the result of
mimicry, giving further credence to the idea that language originates
from without.)
(But then again I remember
hearing a story about an autistic boy who never learned to wield words
when he was younger and who developed a language based on colour.
But then again, he told this story to his doctors when he was an adult,
after having learned a word-based language which, by its very nature
would result in a perspective shift in his memory. But, still, it
seems like something
happened to this person when he was younger-- he
devised his own personal language, it some way, it seems.)
Language is something inside
and outside
at the same time, a part of our intimate being and yet a thing
infinitely alien and not us at all.
Like "Whooper" itself, which
of course is both emblematic of this paradox, and perpetually removed
from it at the same time. It is both other, and yet very
familiar; even though it's perpetually deferred
and
differed, I still feel a kinship with it through the
arrangement of its lines.
(Inside and outside,
instinctive and learned, familiar and alien, me and not-me.)
And this makes it infinite
and transcendent. But there are different orders of infinity
and transcendence.
I mean, sure, I've felt
like
I've touched the face of the unknown by reading books by philosophers
and mystics. I've pondered the
mysteries of quantum physics and our
sub-sub-particulate natures until I start to feel like I'm fading out
into mist. I've meditated and hallucinated and tried to figure
out what I am and what the universe is. But each and every time,
I
have always found
myself back inside myself, all my epiphanies and ideas bringing
me back to
one thing: everything I think, feel, and
experience-- even if it seems as if it comes from outside of my
consciousness-- is still a part of me, a part of a very human identity
living in a very human world interpreting information (of all kinds)
created by fellow human beings interacting with each other in very
human ways through fuzzy and vague decentralized webworks of very human
causes
and effects. And even if this very human world sometimes seems
mysterious and beyond me, and even if it occasionally seems to contain
aspects that originate from without the human sphere, and even if I
sometimes wonder if there isn't some kind of ultimate capital-m Mystery
way out there out of reach of my humanity-- I still know that I am
still human, living in a human reality, functioning within certain
human parameters, even if some of these parameters seem as if they are
trying to extend beyond themselves.
And so, when I get
right down
to it, all of my shifting perspectives and beliefs are human, and every
book I have ever read is human, and every tv show I've ever watched is
human, and every piece of music I've heard and painting I've seen are
human. And every emotion I have ever felt and every thought I've
ever
thought is, of course, human. And so everything that has informed
me and made me what I am is ultimately human.
And even though I can know
nothing outside of my own senses and my own identity, and even though
everything outside of me is ultimately unknowable, unapproachable,
not-me and other, and even though this makes the world around me
ultimately unknowable-- the world around me as it stands is still all
very much the product of a human reality-- or maybe a bunch of human
realities all colliding and meshing with each other. (Even though
my self itself is also, under deeper inspection, kind of an
unapproachable mystery as well.) After all, even the tools given
to me by my fellow humans, tools with which (I have been promised--
also by fellow humans) I can transcend the human-- are still always
ultimately (and always will be) irrevocably products of the human.
And granted, a painting by
an elephant is still, on one hand, at least a partly-knowable artifact
because it can be defined as being "a painting" "by" "an elephant"--
and it's also the work of a mammal-- a biological class of which I also
find my
self to be a member of-- and so it's not totally, unapproachably,
absolutely capital-O Other. But "Whooper" is still far more
mysterious than
anything I have ever directly encountered before in my life.
And it is this very mystery
that makes it warm and inviting. Because it's like something I
would paint-- while at the same time being absolutely nothing at all
like
something I would paint.
(I have just learned that
there is a cat named Nora who plays the piano. She is on YouTube
and Jon Stewart also makes fun of her. Because she is on YouTube,
I have heard her
play and she sounds like John Cage. And that John Cage sounds
like Nora
and Nora like John Cage is a compliment to both.)
But what does all this mean?
Is Kamala's behaviour
an analogue for how human beings learned to communicate, or is it
something else?
Did we learn language
through a series of happy accidents? Pain cries leading to the
forced recognition of subject and object; fortuitously ingested
mushrooms spurring on the madness of metaphor-making
hallucinations and neural connections and abstract representations--
after of course the requisite gut-clutching, gasping, vomiting and
diarrhea; the accidental identification with an accidental pattern in
the mud that somehow looked kind of
like the shape of a man, an elk, the sun; a bolt from the blue by some
original genius who just had two brain
cells slightly out of whack, the sudden fiery realization that certain
grunts and gestures
could be used to represent things, ourselves, nature, different wants
and desires. Or was it all just a slowly changing evolutionary
strategy: from grunts to concepts to words?
Or were these happy accidents, if they did occur, also evolutionary
strategies? Survival of the fittest becoming survival of the
most imaginative-- structures in the brain growing over generations,
growing more and more complex, waiting for some outside stimulus to
trigger a linguistic miracle. Or was it all just something else,
some other
phenomenon as yet
undiscovered or untheorized?
And
because whatever "meaning" that
"Whooper" might have must be imposed upon it from
without-- the result of human minds, human experience, and human
contexts-- all
conclusions about and interpretations of "Whooper" will always be
provisional, subjective, unknowable. And because of this, doesn't
"Whooper," and by extension all other animal art, embody Jacques
Derrida's
concept of
"différance"-- the concept that is not a concept that
simultaneously
differs and defers-- more than any work, any text, ever created by
human beings?
And if "Whooper" is a
metaphor, what does it represent?
"Whooper" spurs on these
ruminations, and others in a nearly infinite associative chain.
And none of them can be
verified. And even the wildest speculation becomes inadequate,
seems trivial before this immense, but incredibly familiar,
unknowability.
And ultimately, the only
thing than can be known (and really only known by me) is that
hanging above the couch in my condo is a painting entitled "Whooper,"
painted by an elephant named Kamala. And I can verify this
because the
painting has been
"signed" by its artist-- and I also own a dvd that shows Kamala
painting
"Whooper."
And that's it.
Bottom line:
"Whooper" is
beautiful.
It is beautiful
simply
because it is beautiful.
It is a thing in
itself.
Like all good art, it is
simultaneously beyond meaning and pregnant with it.
It resists all
categories, all attempts at explanation, explication, and theory.
It is infinite, filled with
eternal possibility but eluding any and all certainty.
You can get
lost in its lines because it is about everything and
nothing.
It's the sun, a tree, a
sense of multidirectional motion, a face, the intersection of paths in
a life, a game, an exultation of being here and now alive doing this, a
frozen trace of the act of painting, an act of worship, sadness, joy.
Human. Nonhuman.
An
idea beyond naming.
