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“BE FREE!!!” An in--dependence day reflection.
One possible definition for freedom is the ability to name anything we choose as ‘freedom.‘ Then again, our imaginations are also like colonies. Foreign masters have sent forth emissaries, priests, soldiers, and moneychangers, with shiny baubles, exotic sweets, and magic words from unknown gods; and the power of those words is in paper, gold, steel, and lead. The new gods are bloody gods and those that serve them take delight in death. And so they call it “freedom,” these new gods and their killer angels, and they proclaim ‘freedom or death,’ freedom and death, freedom; death. And when all that we once had has been given over, all our sacred places, our sons and daughters, all our ancient affections, then even our shadows must surrender the ground they fall upon, must surrender to this freedom. Yet still they come, they have never ceased coming, the gods of this world/word, whose greatest commandment is to “Be Free!”
“Be Free” is the title of that life size sculpture of myself I constructed from paper, plaster, bronze and barbed wire about 15 years ago. That face is my own ‘death mask.' The title "Be Free" inscribed at the top in gold leaf I borrowed from Louis Althusser and his philosophical concept of 'hailing' and ‘interpellation.‘ Obliged y’all, happy in--dependence day, be well, be happy, be thankful.
A "life size" perspective. And following is a picture of the other or back side, depending on what you choose to call it. Again, obliged.
You folks with a penchant for scholastics may prefer that I had just quoted GD + FG, “The various forms of education or "normalization" imposed upon an individual consist in making him or her change points of subjectification, always moving toward a higher, nobler one in closer conformity with the supposed ideal. Then from the point of subjectification issues a subject of enunciation, as a function of a mental reality determined by that point. Then from the subject of enunciation issues a subject of the statement, in other words, a subject bound to statements in conformity with a dominant reality (of which the mental reality just mentioned is a part, even when it seems to oppose it). (A Thousand Plateaus, capitalism and schizophrenia, Gilles Deluze and Felix Guattari.) Sometimes an artist just likes to take a different path. obliged, Daniel.
ReplyDeleteNote to self: I'm not sure it's altogether healthy to get up and see your own death mask every morning.
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