Task 50 - Oh! Brother
Marie writes:
This will probably be your last task before the Final Project Task, to be activated as soon as I go into labour.
This task is based on conversations we have had regarding a difficult family situation involving yourself and your brother. I want to address this issue and to let it form the basis of this task. A lot of pain and emotion has overwhelmed you since an unpleasant verbal confrontation with him and, since then, an ongoing email exchange, all of which has led to uncertainty about your current and future relationship.
A question asked by Hector Rodriguez in his article ‘Constraint, Cruelty and Conversation’ has become key to our project. He asks ‘whether generative or constraint-based artworks must always comprise tightly closed formal systems, or whether (and how) formal constraints can also open up the work to the life that is lived while making it’. I feel this question is particularly relevant for this task.
Additionally, we had an interesting chat at the beach yesterday which involved this quote and during which we also touched on Karen Barad and the idea of the ‘apparatus making the experience’. I think neither of really knew what we were talking about (it was what we have started to classify as a ‘Beavis & Butthead conversation’!). We were just testing ideas out loud. But it stirred something in me. Whatever you took away and remember from this chat, let it inform your response to this task.
Your task
I want you to use the experience with your brother, your reactions to your verbal and email exchanges, the practical circumstances and perhaps even some of the emails themselves to create a response that aims to resolve thoughts or emotions. Here some questions to consider:
- What constraints could you impose on this response that corresponds to the circumstances of the events?
- How does the ‘apparatus make this experience’?
The questions are deliberately unclear as I do not want to instruct you on how to go about this task. It would feel intrusive. The only suggestion I have, will be to review Response 28 – 28 times 28 and see if any of the formal aspects of this response could help you access your (internal) material.