Words or pictures, which are more powerful?
A novelist and a photographer collide in this grand tale of extraterrestrial murder. The picture of Dorya Glenn is a riveting sci-fi erotic thriller told in two intertwining layers. A photographer stalks a writer after severely altering her portrait. Like a paparazzo he spies on her and observes her closely and intimately. He captures every single detail of her daily life through his lens while she writes the sci-fi story that is published in this book. However, he especially wants to find out how image manipulation affects her and her psyche, with fatal consequences. Alongside the photographer, Dorya Glenn is the main protagonist in the sci-fi story. But who is she?
WHO KNOWS A WOMAN’S NAME?
www.doryaglenn.com
Een fotograaf stalkt een schrijfster nadat hij haar portret zwaar vervormde en manipuleerde. Als een paparazzo ligt hij haar op de luur en onderzoekt haar nauw. Hij legt elk detail van haar dagelijkse leven vast met zijn camera terwijl zij het sci-fi verhaal aan het schrijven is dat in dit boek wordt gepubliceerd. Hij wil echter vooral weten wat voor impact de beeldmanipulatie heeft op haar psyche. Met onafwendbare gevolgen voor beiden. Naast de fotograaf is Dorya Glenn de hoofdpersoon van dit sci-fi verhaal. Maar wie is zij eigenlijk?
Julie O’yang (1968) is an author, screenwriter and visual artist based in The Netherlands. She publishes in English, Dutch and Chinese. www.julieoyang.com
Filip Naudts (1968) is a photography artist and photography reviewer based in Belgium. www.guardalafotografia.be
Julie O’yang Filip Naudts
Firstly, “the Word versus the Image”, which of the two is more powerful? The competition starts the moment you are born. Who do you like more, your mom or your dad? They are honest people and dare to use the word “power” in their relationship. I must confess that when I started writing this letter, I hurt my head with the same question. How are the Word and the Image related? Simply put: a dad is a dad and a mom is a mom. This difference is essential even if dad is a he-female and mom is a she-male – which fortunately does not apply to your case here. The Word is the mother, even in the biblical sense: “In the beginning was the Word.” Text is the fabric; the word “textile” confirms this notion. Slowly the fruit grows and meets the expectation that shapes the essence of what “Word” means. One word does not accomplish much. Language is an on-going game. Language cannot be trusted to tell the truth but is perfectly reliable to tell a lie or to serve fiction’s multiple interpretations. Play over and again. The Word is an inexhaustible source. Motherhood starts the mechanism of a growing process that takes a life time. The Image is the father, the ejaculation and the moment of fertilization. Its meaning cannot be measured in time, but it can be viewed from all angles. A different perspective produces a different meaning.
an image novel that combines the directness of the Image and the suspense of the Word. The Image becomes less rigid and the Word can be unspoken or shown as an interior monologue. Secondly, our present time versus our future. Dorya is science fiction that reflects the here and now. Well, that’s the thing. Science concurs with technological progresses we wish to see and there is much fiction and little science in that. Of course, also some ethical issues are being addressed in the story. Your blue attire covering your head is transparent. Does it suggest progress? It would be nice. But perhaps we should stop thinking in forward-mode, something we have proclaimed for a while but still we don’t seem to change the way we think. Above all, we see progress as something like climbing the height, in the direction of what religions call heaven. Our history consists of stories of our incompatible misery. Perhaps the future lies in how to slow down and tone down the destruction of our life on earth?
The binary unit of man and woman also applies to the Image and the Word. An image can be interpreted through words. Although our daily communication is filled with situations where words aren’t even involved, we hopelessly try to grasp reality with accurate words, either through articulate captions or wordy expressions and all variations in between.
The next question involves privacy and surveillance culture. We no longer worry about Big Brother – he is everywhere. Facial recognition, communication tracking, data gathering… What exactly is the problem here? Is it not so that in a free world unsuppressed by religion we can be whoever, whatever we want to be? Only liars have things to hide. Transparency. Your see-through dress says that much, doesn’t it? Sure, we worry about losing our intimacy. “Viral” is what your parents wish for you. Artists are perverse exhibitionists. And frankly, I write this letter to share not only with you but also with everyone out there; the audiences your father and mother wish to attract.
Words yearn for images, but mostly in a slightly disdainful manner: as illustration. An illustration illustrates that which is visible but secondary to written words that are meant to be read. Reading implies understanding. Illustrations may well be vague as they do not represent the truth. They would rather let the truth be. Et tout le reste est littérature, like Paul Verlaine so beautifully put, which indicates a perversion of our language that seeks truth. Image is poetry. Words must be shaped into interesting rhythms to become poetry. Your parents have found a brilliant solution for this split:
The fourth subject is my favourite. Sex and eroticism. Your mom already pronounced the word “pornography”. I somehow felt it coming when I praised your smart dress. Like art, eroticism is a cultural phenomenon that has always fascinated me. In the early 1970’s, I have studied the 17th century libertinism – which, as a Renaissance movement, can be traced back to antiquity – and within humanism the subject remains forever relevant: our right and our very action to enjoy our body. This is my territory. The word “sex” comes from the commercial world of clichés and seems of little interest to me.
2
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Firstly, “the Word versus the Image”, which of the two is more powerful? The competition starts the moment you are born. Who do you like more, your mom or your dad? They are honest people and dare to use the word “power” in their relationship. I must confess that when I started writing this letter, I hurt my head with the same question. How are the Word and the Image related? Simply put: a dad is a dad and a mom is a mom. This difference is essential even if dad is a he-female and mom is a she-male – which fortunately does not apply to your case here. The Word is the mother, even in the biblical sense: “In the beginning was the Word.” Text is the fabric; the word “textile” confirms this notion. Slowly the fruit grows and meets the expectation that shapes the essence of what “Word” means. One word does not accomplish much. Language is an on-going game. Language cannot be trusted to tell the truth but is perfectly reliable to tell a lie or to serve fiction’s multiple interpretations. Play over and again. The Word is an inexhaustible source. Motherhood starts the mechanism of a growing process that takes a life time. The Image is the father, the ejaculation and the moment of fertilization. Its meaning cannot be measured in time, but it can be viewed from all angles. A different perspective produces a different meaning.
an image novel that combines the directness of the Image and the suspense of the Word. The Image becomes less rigid and the Word can be unspoken or shown as an interior monologue. Secondly, our present time versus our future. Dorya is science fiction that reflects the here and now. Well, that’s the thing. Science concurs with technological progresses we wish to see and there is much fiction and little science in that. Of course, also some ethical issues are being addressed in the story. Your blue attire covering your head is transparent. Does it suggest progress? It would be nice. But perhaps we should stop thinking in forward-mode, something we have proclaimed for a while but still we don’t seem to change the way we think. Above all, we see progress as something like climbing the height, in the direction of what religions call heaven. Our history consists of stories of our incompatible misery. Perhaps the future lies in how to slow down and tone down the destruction of our life on earth?
The binary unit of man and woman also applies to the Image and the Word. An image can be interpreted through words. Although our daily communication is filled with situations where words aren’t even involved, we hopelessly try to grasp reality with accurate words, either through articulate captions or wordy expressions and all variations in between.
The next question involves privacy and surveillance culture. We no longer worry about Big Brother – he is everywhere. Facial recognition, communication tracking, data gathering… What exactly is the problem here? Is it not so that in a free world unsuppressed by religion we can be whoever, whatever we want to be? Only liars have things to hide. Transparency. Your see-through dress says that much, doesn’t it? Sure, we worry about losing our intimacy. “Viral” is what your parents wish for you. Artists are perverse exhibitionists. And frankly, I write this letter to share not only with you but also with everyone out there; the audiences your father and mother wish to attract.
Words yearn for images, but mostly in a slightly disdainful manner: as illustration. An illustration illustrates that which is visible but secondary to written words that are meant to be read. Reading implies understanding. Illustrations may well be vague as they do not represent the truth. They would rather let the truth be. Et tout le reste est littérature, like Paul Verlaine so beautifully put, which indicates a perversion of our language that seeks truth. Image is poetry. Words must be shaped into interesting rhythms to become poetry. Your parents have found a brilliant solution for this split:
The fourth subject is my favourite. Sex and eroticism. Your mom already pronounced the word “pornography”. I somehow felt it coming when I praised your smart dress. Like art, eroticism is a cultural phenomenon that has always fascinated me. In the early 1970’s, I have studied the 17th century libertinism – which, as a Renaissance movement, can be traced back to antiquity – and within humanism the subject remains forever relevant: our right and our very action to enjoy our body. This is my territory. The word “sex” comes from the commercial world of clichés and seems of little interest to me.
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21
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Dorya Glenn: New European, a temporary refugee Jeremy Fernando interviews the authors “Do you know what Art means?” Sipping from her glass, she started talking randomly like she usually did in a trance-like way. “Simply and short, art’s original meaning is skill: a manual labour. The word was first used in its modern sense in the 1660’s, two centuries after Renaissance masters struggled to be considered thinkers as well as craftsmen. Kunst, the German word for art, seems more accurate. Its root is kennen, to know. Germans understood art is a type of knowledge higher than intellectual know-ledge. It’s not a skill, not a trick, it does not suggest an illusion of the world. Kunst describes art’s purpose.” The Picture of Dorya Glenn Jeremy: If to write (scribere) is also to tear, to scratch out as one is scratching in, then what are the marks that remain in this text that we are reading, that we are all attempting to respond to. Julie: Somebody asked me recently if writing is a violent act... Writing involves the transformation of both the writer and the reader. Sometimes the writer has to kill herself to become. In The Picture of Dorya Glenn, the writer possesses an ink laser that she called a Space Handgun and the photographer possesses a one-eyed monster which is his camera. These “tools” are both innocent and powerful at the same time. Innocent because you can’t be creative without innocence and powerful because they change our reality. Jeremy: A dear teacher and friend, Hubertus von Amelunxen, once said, perhaps the catastrophe is that one is photogenic, that one is photographable, and thus can be caught in time. Yet at the same time, once written into time, one is potentially always also timeless, until such time that the medium on which one is written disappears (back) into time. What, dear Filip, is your relationship with time at the very moment in which you are pulling the trigger, sentencing your subject to a timeless time. Julie: Filip is a man of image. He keeps his mouth shut, so I think I will steal his moment. When I saw Filip’s work for the first time years back, I said: WOW!
152
This was my first reaction. WOW! This guy makes sex queens, simultaneously trashy but refined and sublimely cultic. It seemed to me like an unfading dream vision. Not superficial. When he invited me to work together on a photo novel, I immediately wanted to do something epic, something that alternated between the banal and the surreal. I want us to be entertaining as well as profound. So one of the themes – or one current issue, if you will – we address is the relationship between the Word and the Image. Which of the two is more powerful in today’s social media landscape? Another important theme is the privacy versus surveillance culture, which is underlined by our use of security camera images. Filip: It is true that I try to avoid words as much as I can, with a good reason. Being an artist who paints with my lens, I have always had a love-hate relationship with time: How to understand time. To talk about time publicly is like driving a car at 4 o’clock in the morning – I just want to go very fast and hit home as soon as possible (laughs). I believe every pronounced syllable limits the experience of the viewer and takes away his freedom of imagination. Image is my way of thinking, which I trust, even though I accept their temporary nature. A powerful thought occupy its own space, just like a powerful image. Jeremy: One aspect of staging is beauty; another aspect – at least according to Artaud – is it’s ability to move, to shock one out of stupor: do you see these two notions as contradictory, or is there a deeply shocking aspect to beauty? Julie: This is a tricky one. We take different cultural elements out of their context for the viewers to look at them again with a fresh eye. I think this is what art does: art is a sincere attempt at ideological reconciliation and a sincere attempt at being human. We want to create Dorya Glenn as an icon that unifies. Dorya Glenn project is about cross-cultural pollination. On the one hand, we intend to address urgent issues and communicate a transcultural, transracial message, on the other hand we want to encourage multi-disciplinary collaborations bewteen artists from different roads and contribute to our globalizing world.
153
Dorya Glenn: New European, a temporary refugee Jeremy Fernando interviews the authors “Do you know what Art means?” Sipping from her glass, she started talking randomly like she usually did in a trance-like way. “Simply and short, art’s original meaning is skill: a manual labour. The word was first used in its modern sense in the 1660’s, two centuries after Renaissance masters struggled to be considered thinkers as well as craftsmen. Kunst, the German word for art, seems more accurate. Its root is kennen, to know. Germans understood art is a type of knowledge higher than intellectual know-ledge. It’s not a skill, not a trick, it does not suggest an illusion of the world. Kunst describes art’s purpose.” The Picture of Dorya Glenn Jeremy: If to write (scribere) is also to tear, to scratch out as one is scratching in, then what are the marks that remain in this text that we are reading, that we are all attempting to respond to. Julie: Somebody asked me recently if writing is a violent act... Writing involves the transformation of both the writer and the reader. Sometimes the writer has to kill herself to become. In The Picture of Dorya Glenn, the writer possesses an ink laser that she called a Space Handgun and the photographer possesses a one-eyed monster which is his camera. These “tools” are both innocent and powerful at the same time. Innocent because you can’t be creative without innocence and powerful because they change our reality. Jeremy: A dear teacher and friend, Hubertus von Amelunxen, once said, perhaps the catastrophe is that one is photogenic, that one is photographable, and thus can be caught in time. Yet at the same time, once written into time, one is potentially always also timeless, until such time that the medium on which one is written disappears (back) into time. What, dear Filip, is your relationship with time at the very moment in which you are pulling the trigger, sentencing your subject to a timeless time. Julie: Filip is a man of image. He keeps his mouth shut, so I think I will steal his moment. When I saw Filip’s work for the first time years back, I said: WOW!
152
This was my first reaction. WOW! This guy makes sex queens, simultaneously trashy but refined and sublimely cultic. It seemed to me like an unfading dream vision. Not superficial. When he invited me to work together on a photo novel, I immediately wanted to do something epic, something that alternated between the banal and the surreal. I want us to be entertaining as well as profound. So one of the themes – or one current issue, if you will – we address is the relationship between the Word and the Image. Which of the two is more powerful in today’s social media landscape? Another important theme is the privacy versus surveillance culture, which is underlined by our use of security camera images. Filip: It is true that I try to avoid words as much as I can, with a good reason. Being an artist who paints with my lens, I have always had a love-hate relationship with time: How to understand time. To talk about time publicly is like driving a car at 4 o’clock in the morning – I just want to go very fast and hit home as soon as possible (laughs). I believe every pronounced syllable limits the experience of the viewer and takes away his freedom of imagination. Image is my way of thinking, which I trust, even though I accept their temporary nature. A powerful thought occupy its own space, just like a powerful image. Jeremy: One aspect of staging is beauty; another aspect – at least according to Artaud – is it’s ability to move, to shock one out of stupor: do you see these two notions as contradictory, or is there a deeply shocking aspect to beauty? Julie: This is a tricky one. We take different cultural elements out of their context for the viewers to look at them again with a fresh eye. I think this is what art does: art is a sincere attempt at ideological reconciliation and a sincere attempt at being human. We want to create Dorya Glenn as an icon that unifies. Dorya Glenn project is about cross-cultural pollination. On the one hand, we intend to address urgent issues and communicate a transcultural, transracial message, on the other hand we want to encourage multi-disciplinary collaborations bewteen artists from different roads and contribute to our globalizing world.
153
Words or pictures, which are more powerful?
A novelist and a photographer collide in this grand tale of extraterrestrial murder. The picture of Dorya Glenn is a riveting sci-fi erotic thriller told in two intertwining layers. A photographer stalks a writer after severely altering her portrait. Like a paparazzo he spies on her and observes her closely and intimately. He captures every single detail of her daily life through his lens while she writes the sci-fi story that is published in this book. However, he especially wants to find out how image manipulation affects her and her psyche, with fatal consequences. Alongside the photographer, Dorya Glenn is the main protagonist in the sci-fi story. But who is she?
WHO KNOWS A WOMAN’S NAME?
www.doryaglenn.com
Een fotograaf stalkt een schrijfster nadat hij haar portret zwaar vervormde en manipuleerde. Als een paparazzo ligt hij haar op de luur en onderzoekt haar nauw. Hij legt elk detail van haar dagelijkse leven vast met zijn camera terwijl zij het sci-fi verhaal aan het schrijven is dat in dit boek wordt gepubliceerd. Hij wil echter vooral weten wat voor impact de beeldmanipulatie heeft op haar psyche. Met onafwendbare gevolgen voor beiden. Naast de fotograaf is Dorya Glenn de hoofdpersoon van dit sci-fi verhaal. Maar wie is zij eigenlijk?
Julie O’yang (1968) is an author, screenwriter and visual artist based in The Netherlands. She publishes in English, Dutch and Chinese. www.julieoyang.com
Filip Naudts (1968) is a photography artist and photography reviewer based in Belgium. www.guardalafotografia.be
Julie O’yang Filip Naudts