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! Shamanic Tendencies: An investigation into the use of shamanic techniques in the performance art of Joseph Beuys, Linder, and Marcus Coates.
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Research Project 20 credits Angela Sutton Edinburgh College of Art, Intermedia Art Lousie Milne 13th January 2014
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Word count: 6052
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List of illustrations……………………………………………………………….1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………2
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Conceptions of shamanism in western culture 2.1 The legacy of Eliade………………………………………………………4 2.2 Hugo Ball - the first artist-shaman?……………………………………..6 Case Studies 3.1 Joseph Beuys, I like America and America likes me (1974)………………8 3.3
Linder, The Working Class Goes to Paradise (2006)……………………..11
3.2
Marcus Coates, Journey to the Lower World (2003)……………………..15
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Why do artists want to be shamans, and why do we want to watch? 4.1 Religion-by-proxy…………………………………………………………18 4.2 The destruction of experience…………………………………………..21 4.3 Unknowable forces……………………………………………………….22
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Conclusions……………………………………………………………………….25
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Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….27
List of illustrations
! Figure 1:Hugo Ball (1916) Karawane. Performance at Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich……………7 ! Figure 2: Hugo Ball (1917) Transcript of Karawane……………………………………………7 ! Figure 3: Joseph Beuys (1974) I like America and America likes Me…………………………..8 Performance at René Block Gallery, New York . Photo credit Caroline Tisdall.
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Figure 4: Linder (2006) The Working Class goes to Paradise…………………………………..11 Performance at Tate Britain.
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Figure 5: Linder (2006) The Working Class goes to Paradise……………………………………12 Performance at Tate Britain.
! Figure 6: An Eighteenth century engraving illustrating a Shaker congregation…………..13 ! Figure 7: Nineteenth century Evenk shaman’s coat…….……………………………………..14 !
Figure 8: Marcus Coates (2003) Journey to the Lower World……………………………………15 Performance at Linosa Close, Sheil Park estate, Liverpool. Photo credit Nick David.
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Figure 9: Marcus Coates (2003) Journey to the Lower World……………………………………16 Performance at Linosa Close, Sheil Park estate, Liverpool. Photo credit Nick David.
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Figure 10: Korean shaman performing a kut inside an urban house (1994)………………..24 Photo credit: Laurel Kendall.
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1. Introduction My motivation for writing this essay comes from a personal interest in performance art that employs shamanic techniques. I am interested in why, as an atheist who does not believe in the dogma of formalised religion nor the efficacy of esoteric rituals, do I find myself drawn to this particular area of art? The aim of this essay is to explore the implications of shamanic ritual when it is employed within a secular rather than spiritual context. The term shaman has a long and complex history - a history that is very much bound up with issues of primitivism, colonialism and even racism. Over the centuries the idea of the shaman has been variously misrepresented, misinterpreted and misunderstood, and as result its use in contemporary western society has become somewhat vague and generalised. The aim of this essay is not to define the word “shaman� in essential, strictly ethnographic terms, but rather to explore the various ways that modern and contemporary performance artists have broadly engaged with shamanic ideas. With this in mind, I am less concerned with judging the authenticity of such performances, as I am with the motivations of artists who work in this way and the appeal that it holds for audiences and gallery-goers. However, in order to undertake a meaningful analysis of the use of shamanic ritual within performance art, it is essential to first consider the status of shamanism within a broader social and historical context. I therefore begin by looking at how shamanism has generally been perceived western culture, and evaluating the sources and credibility of these perceptions. My aim here is to provide an account of where both artists and their audiences acquire their knowledge or ideas about shamanism, and then use this as a grounding for further discussion. I go on to identify three specific performances: I like America and America likes me (1974), by Joseph Beuys (1921 -1986), The Working !2
Class Goes to Paradise
(2006), by Linder (b. 1954), and Journey to the Lower World
(2004), by Marcus Coates (b. 1968). In order to establish the supposed shamanic credentials of my chosen artists and their performances, I draw comparisons between ethnographic accounts of shamanism, and the content and structure of the artworks discussed. Following this, I analyse why these artists choose to work in this way, why audiences are drawn to these sorts of performances., and what the intended and actual functions of these performed rituals might be.
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2
Conceptions of shamanism in western culture
2.1
The legacy of Eliade
My starting point for this chapter is the seminal work, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, written by Romanian historian of religion, Merica Eliade, in 1951. With this book, Eliade’s primary aim was to identify similarities between customs of various shamanic communities, thus
the beliefs and
providing a thorough and
definitive account of shamanism as practiced by indigenous peoples. Eliade’s methodologies and conclusions have now been widely discredited (see Hutton, 2001, Kehoe, 1996 and 2000, Humphrey and Thomas, 1996) precisely because of this drive towards essential definition and consequent over-generalisation. Even Wendy Doniger, a defender of Eliade, writing in the foreword to the 2004 edition of his book, concedes that he was working and writing “within a body of assumptions that we no longer accept” (Doniger, 2004). Although I agree with many of the criticisms levelled against Eliade and his grand survey, I nevertheless find it to be a useful source when assessing contemporary western ideas about shamanism. I judge Eliade not on the veracity of his claims, but instead on the extent to which his writings have influenced how western “outsiders” have apprehended the figure of the shaman. I contend that beyond the rigorous discourses of academic anthropology, the romanticised, exociticised and generalised version of shamanism that is epitomised by Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, is the version most appealing to westerners, and has thus persisted in informing our ideas about what shamanism is.
! Eliade’s account of shamanism is primarily focused on ecstasy, trance and heightened or altered states of consciousness . He writes, “the shaman, and he alone, is the great master of ecstasy” (1989, 4). He stipulates that this characteristic alone is not sufficient to be considered a shaman - the person must also be able to !4
travel during these trance states; either ascend to the upper world or descend to the lower world. Such journeys are undertaken in the service of the community, for example, the aim of a voyage to the lower world is usually to find and retrieve a sick person’s soul (1989, 203). In this way, the shaman has a clearly defined role within the community and is willing to risk his/her own safety for the benefit of the group. Eliade discusses at length the initiation and training that a candidate must undergo before being recognised as a legitimate shaman. People do not choose to become a shaman, but rather they are called to the shamanic profession by spirits. They find themselves feeling sickly, withdrawn and contemplative (1989, 20), symptoms that are often accompanied by “considerable mental derangement” (1989, 16) and generally culminate in some form of epileptic fit. During this period the candidate encounters spirit guides - usually in the form of animals - who help to heal him and later become his helpers during shamanic journeys (1989, 28). By emerging from this period of ill-health through a process of self-healing, the candidates therapeutic powers are demonstrated to the community. Having proved that he/she is not simply suffering from mental illness, the candidate undertakes rigorous training under the instruction of both spirit guides, and old master shamans (1989, 13).
! Taking the account of shamanism detailed above, it is easy to see how the
figure of the shaman was appropriated by westerners and put to work as a metaphor for the artist. As art historian Ester Pasztory explains:
! “By the twentieth century the concept of the shaman had been transformed into a metaphor for the artist; the artist is now identified as someone on the edge of madness who can ascend or descend into realms of unconsciousness
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unavailable to others… The contemporary artist is defined as a marginal person who risks his own sanity for the benefit of the group.” (2005, 93) The conflation of artist and shaman presented here relies too heavily on the ‘tortured-artist-genius’ figure of Romanticism and high Modernism, and is not a particularly useful nor relevant metaphor in the context of contemporary critical discourses on art. It is especially redundant in relation to the work of Linder and Coates, as these artists tend to work within a postmodern framework, which rejects the absolute authority of the artist in favour of a more collaborative, nonhierarchical approach. In the case of Beuys, it could be argued that he has been so venerated and over-mythologised that he does indeed fit quite comfortably into this trope. I, however, do not subscribe to this view, and am concerned with the ways in which Beuys, Coates and Linder have directly engaged with shamanic techniques, as opposed to vague comparisons drawn between the figures of artist and shaman.
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Hugo Ball - the first artist-shaman?
On 14th July 1916, Hugo Ball (1886-1927) performed his sound poem Karawane, at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. The poem was made up of a jumble of nonsensical words carrying no semantic meaning, which were spoken or sung in a rhythmic but disordered fashion, punctuated by guttural and spluttering verbal incantations. Made especially for the performance, Ball wore an outlandish costume (see figure 1), consisting of shiny blue cardboard tubes, animalistic ‘hands’ and a tall “witch doctor’s hat.”1 Describing this performance in his diary, Ball writes:
! “I began to chant my vowel sequences in a church style like a recitative, and tried not only to look serious but to force myself to be serious… Then the lights went out, as I had ordered, and bathed in sweat, I was carried down off the stage like a magical bishop.” (Ball, 1916/1996, 71) !6
Ball’s performance, with its costume, paraphernalia and mode of delivery,
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certainly evocative of contemporary accounts of shamanic ritual. Dada scholar Thomas Sandqvist associates this particular performance with a “strongly shamanic and ecstatic” tradition (2006, 265), and argues that an interest in “primitive” oral cultures permeated the Dada movement. The fact that Ball clearly took this performance seriously demonstrates that he was not simply mimicking or mocking “primitive” customs, but rather was using them as a vehicle to express something more profound. He writes: “Our experiments touched on areas of philosophy and of life that our environments - so rational and so precise - scarcely let us dream of” (cited in Sandqvist, 2006, 266). This statement highlights the relationship between living in an increasingly rationalised and regulated culture, and the desire that this may prompt for a more visceral and unpredictable engagement with one’s environment - an issue that I explore further in chapter 4. By giving a brief account of shamanism within popular imagination and using Hugo Ball’s performance as a cultural precursor, I hope to have provided a lineage for the artworks discussed in the following chapter.
Figure 1: Hugo Ball (1916) Karawane. Performance at Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich.
Figure 2: Transcript of Karawane (1917)
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3
Case Studies
3.1
Joseph Beuys, I like America and America likes Me 1974, René Block Gallery, New York
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Figure 3: Joseph Beuys (1974) I like America and America likes Me. Performance at René Block Gallery, New York . Photo credit Caroline Tisdall.
This action took place in New York in 1974 and commenced at JFK airport, where Beuys was wrapped in thick felt before being transported by ambulance to the Réne Block Gallery. Here, he spent three consecutive days in a room accompanied by a wild coyote. He also used several props throughout the action - the felt blanket, a walking stick, a triangle, his hat, leather gloves and fifty copies of the Wall Street journal, which were delivered daily; and urinated on by the coyote. During the three days, Beuys engaged in repetitive, ritualistic actions whilst staring fixedly at the animal. Over the course of the action Beuys and the coyote formed a tentative relationship, which alternated between states of caution, aggression, and at times companionship. At the end of the three days, Beuys was once again wrapped in felt !8
and driven by ambulance back to the airport - thus never stepping foot on American soil. On this particular aspect of the action, he later said: “I wanted to isolate myself, insulate myself, see nothing of America other than the coyote” (cited in Garoian, 1992, 34).
! Not only this action, but much of Beuys’ work, and indeed life, can be viewed as shamanic. He often referred to himself as a shaman and invented his own initiation myth, which centres around the crashing of his plane during World War II and his subsequent recovery amongst the Tartars . He says:
! “Had it not been for the Tartars I would not be alive today… They covered my body in fat to help it regenerate warmth, and wrapped it in felt as an insulator to help keep the warmth in.” (Tisdall, 1980, 16-17).
! Beuys has been chastised by critics such as Benjamin Buchloh, who views his “myth of origin” as a form of charlatanism and goes so far as to describe the story as a “neurotic lie” (2003, 47). It should be noted however, that the initiation stories of actual shamans are often not believed to be physically true, even by the shamans themselves and the communities to which they belong. For example a common theme of initiation rites is the physical dismemberment and subsequent reconstruction of the initiates body - this manifests as a vivid dream experience, rather than an actual lived event. Descriptions of these experiences also tend to be highly culturally stereotyped and adhere to the particular expectations of a given community (Hutton, 2001, 71-73). With this in mind, I do not believe that the truth or untruth of Beuys’ account is particularly relevant to his status as a shamanic figure.
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When discussing I like America and America likes Me, Beuys stated that he wished to exchange roles with the coyote (Garoian, 1992, 34), to undergo a process of transformation in order to experience an altered version of reality - clearly echoing the shaman’s initiation and training. Transformation and metamorphosis are central themes in much of Beuys’ work; and he has spoken about these ideas as being directly related to the shaman’s role as healer: “My intention is… to stress the idea of transformation… That is precisely what the shaman does in order to bring about change and development: his nature is therapeutic” (cited in Walters, 2010, 42). By engaging with shamanic techniques of transformation, Beuys seems to be positioning himself as a sort of meta-healer. The role of World War II is crucial here - he is striving to heal not only his own physical and emotional wounds, but also the collective trauma brought about by the atrocities of war. Beuys viewed post-war western society as being in desperate need of therapy, and spoke about his “belief in other priorities and the need to come up with a completely different plan” (cited Walters, 2010, 42). Considered within this context, the choice of a coyote as companion is particularly relevant. The coyote is a sacred figure in Native American cosmology, but is now generally regarded as a pest that ought to be eradicated. This can be read as a metaphor for the debasement of indigenous communities and their customs in favour of a more “progressive” and “rational” belief system. Suggested by his refusal to step foot on American soil, Beuys clearly views America as a culture of skewed priorities - the epitome of what needs to be healed.
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3.2
Linder, The Working Class Goes to Paradise 2006, Tate Britain, London
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Figure 4: Linder (2006) The Working Class goes to Paradise. Performance at Tate Britain. This photograph was taken at the beginning of the performance.
This performance took place inside Tate Britain and involves three rock bands playing simultaneously whilst a troupe of female dancers enact the repetitive, ritualistic gestures of the Shakers - an Eighteenth century, non-conformist religious sect led by Mother Ann Lee. Linder moves around the space, sometimes enacting the same gestures as the dancers, and also engaging in other types of ritualistic and trance behaviour such as chanting, convulsing, writhing about on the floor and making non-semantic animalistic noises. For the first half of the performance she is dressed as a woman (see figure 4); wearing high heels, exaggerated makeup, a plastic breastplate, a gag decorated with a magazine-mouth, and a tail of hair which appears to protrude from her coccyx and trail to the floor. Approximately half-way through the performance, she transforms into a ‘man’, donning a false beard and male clothing - the tail remains (see figure 5). The performance is enacted in front of a live audience, however they are only permitted access after the performance has !11
been underway for one hour, and must leave one hour before the end, thus they do not experience the beginning nor end. The performance lasts for just over four hours.
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Figure 5: Linder (2006) The Working Class goes to Paradise. Performance at Tate Britain. This photograph was taken towards the end of the performance.
As with Beuys, there is an element of self-mythologising in the artist’s changing of her name from Linda Mulvey to Linder Sterling in the 1970s, and later dropping the the surname altogether in favour of the singular “Linder”.
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adoption of the Germanic spelling could be read as an act of cultural appropriation, and certainly hints that the Liverpool-born artist identifies with cultures other than her own. Although this self-baptism is not nearly as explicit as Beuys’ myth of origin, it can still be considered a sort of ritualistic initiation rite. In this particular performance, Linder seems to be attempting to channel the spirit or energy of Mother Ann Lee. By assuming the role of mediator between the living and the dead - or at least performing as a mediator - she is engaging with a technique that is central to the role of the shaman. The choice of Ann Lee is also pertinent in this context. Although her Shaker movement was officially a branch of Protestantism, !12
their religious customs, which involved “leaping, shouting, speaking in tongues, and falling into trance states” (Humez, 1992, 84), appear to have a lot more in common with shamanic ritual than with Christianity. As the image below illustrates, the Shakers’ “wild, erotic dances” (Nicoletta, 2001, 305) often resulted in participants loosing control of their bodies; supposedly in states of spiritual ecstasy. Ann Lee was certainly a radical figure, who advocated a form of spirituality that challenged not only established models of Christian worship, but also many societal and gender norms of eighteenth century England.
Figure 6: An Eighteenth century engraving illustrating a Shaker congregation. A female member of the congregation has fallen to
Communication with ‘spirits’ is not the only aspect of this performance that can be considered shamanic. Linder’s use of costume and props is also reminiscent of shamans’ clothing and paraphernalia. The tail, which resembles that of a horse, suggests an animal spirit guide, and is comparable to the teeth, claws, feathers and fur that are attached to the coats and caps of some shamans. The breastplate (see figure 4), used in Tibetan female combat, can be seen as offering metaphorical protection during the performance, much like Beuys’ felt blanket2 (see figure 3).
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Both of these items perform a similar role to the strong leather straps that are attached to the coats of Evenk shamans (see figure 7). As Jean-Luc Lambert (2004) explains in the documentary series Arts du Mythe: Manteau de chamane Evenk [Arts and Myth: Shaman’s coat], these straps provide protection for the shaman, as assistants hold on to them during the trance state in order to prevent him/her from falling or getting lost. Linder also uses costume as a vehicle for transformation from female to male. This transformation is not, however, expressed in the simple terms of two opposing binary states, but instead the notion of gender is conveyed as a fluid and ambiguous entity. The flexibility of gender roles - both societal and biological - is not an uncommon concept in shamanic communities, with transvestism often being regarded as a sacred rather than deviant3
practice
(Mandelstam Blazer, 2003, 242). As Polish anthropologist Marie Czaplicka observed in 1914: “Socially, the shaman does not belong to either the class of males or to that of females, but to a third class, that of shamans… shamans have special taboos comprising both male and female characters. The same may be said of their costume, which combines features peculiar to the dress of both sexes” (cited in Saladin d’Anglure, 2003, 238).
Figure 7: The front and back of an Evenk shaman coat. This costume was brought back by Joseph Martin in 1887 from the Stanovoi Mountains.
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3.3
Marcus Coates, Journey to the Lower World 2003, Linosa Close, Liverpool
Figure 8: Marcus Coates (2003) Journey to the Lower World. Performance at Linosa Close, Sheil Park estate, Liverpool. Photo credit Nick David.
This performance took place in 20034 at Linosa Close, a tower block within the
Sheil Park council estate in Liverpool. More specifically, it took place in the living room of Rose Williams, a resident of the tower block, which was scheduled for imminent demolition by the council. In the weeks leading up to the performance, Marcus Coates became acquainted with several of the block’s residents. Attending coffee mornings and socials at the community centre, he used these events to speak to the tenants about their feelings and worries regarding the demolition (see figure 8). For the performance, he invites the residents to join him in Rose’s living room, where he enacts a “traditional” Siberian Yakut shaman ritual, whilst wearing the pelt, head and antlers of a wild stag. Before embarking on his journey to the lower world, he draws the curtains, spits water on the carpet, and runs a vacuum cleaner around the room - a substitute for the broom used by the Yakuts. He asks the !15
assembled residents if they have a question that they would like answered, to which they respond: “Do we have a protector for this site? What is it?” Next, he starts a CD of drumming music, bows his head, and commences his journey. Giggling and whispering, the residents watch as Coates grunts, howls and barks, apparently conversing with spirit animals in the lower world (see figure 9).
Figure 9: Marcus Coates (2003) Journey to the Lower World. Performance at Linosa Close, Sheil Park estate, Liverpool. Photo credit Nick David.
Of the three performances discussed, Journey to the Lower World is the one that engages most explicitly with shamanic ritual, and most closely allies with Eliade’s writings. This is probably due to the fact that Coates undertook his shamanic training at a new-age weekend course in Notting Hill - such courses often use Eliade’s Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy as their blueprint. Coates admits to feeling deeply sceptical about his “training”, and worries that it might simply be “an exotic middle-class self-help exercise to make us feel we are more than we fear we might be” (2005, no page numbers). Whilst I tend to agree with this interpretation and harbour a general feeling of disdain towards such quests for esoteric knowledge, I !16
nevertheless believe that Coates’ intentions are sincere and commendable. One of the key factors that distinguishes his performance from those of Beuys and Linder, is that it takes place outside of the gallery space. Of course, it does also exist within the context of the gallery, in the form of video and photographic documentation. There is also a distinction to be made here between the primary audience (the residents physically present at the ritual) and the secondary audience (the gallery visitors who experience the ritual via video installation). In the context of the live ritual, the primary audience, the residents of Linosa Park, are Coates’ shamanic community, but what communities are served by the rituals enacted by Beuys and Linder? In the case of Beuys it could be argued that his community stretches to include the whole of civilisation, or at least the “corrupted” post-industrial civilisations that are in need of healing. With The Working Class Goes to Paradise, Linder seems to have created her own self-contained community of 40-or-so fellow performers, who share to a certain extent in the ecstasy of the ritual. There is an ambiguity surrounding the status of the audience, who are permitted access to the gallery for a two-hour interval - are they simply passive bystanders or active participants? The fact that they are excluded form the beginning and the end suggests that the artist only wants them to witness the performance once it has gained some momentum and is at its most aesthetically and theatrically convincing. In this respect at least, it seems that Coates is most faithfully fulfilling the role of shaman, as he performs his duties in the service of a specific, coherent community, who are facing a real and daunting situation. Ironically, Coates is the artist that embodies the most obvious (although not necessarily authentic) visual representation of a shaman, however it seems that
his motivations for engaging
with shamanic techniques actually have less to do with aesthetics, and more to do with social work.
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4
Why do artists want to be shamans, and why do we want to watch?
The primary distinction between “magical” rituals and the formalised rituals of organised religion, is that the former perform a specific function. Such rituals are “not just expressive of abstract ideas but do things, have effects on the world” (Parkin, 2002, 14). In their original context, shamanic rituals have various functions, such as aiding the community in the hunt, or curing a physical ailment. In this chapter, I analyse what the function shamanic ritual might be when it is employed within the context of performance art. What “effects on the world” do these artists hope to achieve, and what can audiences and gallery-goers gain from engaging with shamanic performance?
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Religion-by-proxy
In her 2003 book The Secret Life of Puppets, Victoria Nelson discusses the way in which post-Enlightenment rationalism has become the dominant ideology within British and American culture, to the extent that any serious challenge to this intellectual dogma is regarded as heresy (2003, 16). Our tendencies towards socalled non-rational and superstitious behaviour have therefore been prohibited and repressed, and as a result they are effectively ghettoised into the realm of art. Nelson writes: “The displaced religious impulse surfaces elsewhere... Craving its holy objects, its temples… we have let the transcendental in distorted form invade art” (2003, 19). There is an historical precedent for this impulse, as art historian Michael Camille demonstrates with his discussion of how devout Medieval Christians defended their enjoyment of Greek and Roman depictions of polytheism, through a process of aestheticisation:
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“As opposed to religious modes of apprehension that attempt to penetrate ‘reality’ in ritual action and symbolic codification, the aesthetic frame work takes things out of the context, stabilizes them on the surface. What better way might the ancient pagan deities be neutralized than by viewing them through the ideology of the aesthetic, as ‘art’” (cited in Nelson, 2003, 20). It could be argued that the performances discussed in this essay are employing a similar strategy to that of the Mediaeval monks. By appropriating shamanic techniques and re-situating them within the secular context of the art institution, the spiritual dimension is arguably negated. Artists and viewers are therefore able to engage with these practices as “performance” rather than sacred or spiritual experience. It may be the case, however, that the two categories of “spiritual experience” and “aesthetic experience” are in fact one and the same thing - an argument proposed by anthropologist Alfred Gell. In his 1998 book Art and Agency, Gell highlights the fact that in many non-western cultures, there is no clear distinction between the aesthetic and the spiritual, nor the beautiful and the holy. In a similar vein to Nelson, he describes art as “a substitute for religion which those who have abandoned the outward forms of received religion content themselves with” (1998, 97). This statement is potentially misleading, as it could be read as an attempt to degrade the value of art. It might be construed that Gell is suggesting that those who do not follow religion must “make do” with art as an alternative. However, given that Gell insists upon the tautology of the spiritual and the aesthetic, it is clear that he does not view the latter as an inferior version of the former. Although I agree with Gell’s assertions, his recourse to examples from nonwestern cultures pays heed to the argument that within western culture, there is at least a perceived distinction between the spiritual and the aesthetic. If this is the case, it follows that those who do reject religion would be resistant to engaging with !19
shamanism on spiritual terms. Perhaps the allure of ritualistic performance art is that it provides artists and viewers with a sort of religion-by-proxy. These performances offer a safe place for participants to explore their religious, superstitious and transcendental leanings, whilst still allowing them to maintain a rationalist world view. An alternative interpretation is that these performances have nothing to with spirituality, but rather they provide participants with an opportunity for psychological transcendence. This transcendence is not necessarily a means to accessing some form of spiritual enlightenment, it might just be a worthy end in and of itself. In his 1981 lecture A Performative Approach to Ritual, anthropologist Stanley Tambiah argues that the aim of ritual is to “bring the superior divine realm or moments of beginning into the present human world” (1981, 123). Rather than bringing the divine realm into the human realm, perhaps the aim of performed ritual is to bring the subconscious realm into conscious realm. Tambiah’s “beginning” might well refer to the beginning of our minds, the time before we developed an ego, which according to Freudian accounts at least, has a regulatory effect on our behaviour (Freud, 1962). If these performances do in fact achieve this effect, is it felt solely by the artist acting as shaman, or can participants and viewers share in the transcendence? In the case of I like America and America likes Me, this seems unlikely. The action was an insulated experience between Beuys and the coyote, and the vast majority of people who engage with the work do so through photographic documentation. It is unrealistic to believe that by simply looking at a photograph, one might share in Beuys’ apparent transformation. With Coates’ Journey to the Lower World, there is certainly potential for the primary audience to share in his “journey”, but from watching video documentation of their reactions to the performance, I would conclude that they did not. Perhaps this is because it was !20
simply too alien a situation for them to fully engage with - the humour of Coates’ costume and vocal outbursts acting as an impassable barrier. Having personally experienced The Working Class Goes to Paradise, I can confirm that I certainly felt something. I had a visceral and emotional response to the performance, but I would stop short of saying that I transcended my conscious mind and entered a trance state. However, in the debate between spiritual experience and psychological experience, I am certainly inclined to view my reaction in psychological and physiological terms rather than spiritual ones - I do not believe that I had a religious epiphany; was in the presence of ancestral spirits; or journeyed to the lower world. This is, of course, an account of my own subjective experience, but I imagine most participants, critics and curators approach this work with a similar mind-set. Even if we do all agree with a psychological interpretation, it could be argued that we are just kidding ourselves, perhaps we really are engaging with supernatural forces, but the “rationalist dogma” is so deeply embedded that we refuse to believe that our experiences could be grounded in anything other than empirical fact.
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The destruction of experience
Contemporary philosopher Giorgio Agamben goes further than Nelson, to say that modern scientific rationalism has not only prohibited religious experience, but has been the death of experience all together. He argues that science and experience are inherently incompatible. According to Agamben, the nature of scientific experiment serves to alienate the individual through a process of measurement and quantification - experience is displaced from the individual onto the instruments and numbers. In his 2007 book Infancy and History: The Destruction of Experience, he argues, “experience is incompatible with certainty, and once an experience has !21
become measurable and certain, it immediately looses its authority” (2007,18). On first consideration, it seems plausible to suggest that participating in performed shamanic ritual might offer a path towards regaining this lost experience. However, it is naive to think that by engaging with shamanic performance we are existing in some sort of extra-scientific bubble. We cannot simply abandon our knowledge and often deeply embedded commitment to science for the duration of a performance. As Agamben argues, “the fact is that the old subject of experience no longer exists” (2007, 23). Whilst it is impossible to relinquish all ties to scientific rationalism and thus regain authentic experience on Agamben’s terms, these performances do at least hint at an alternative approach. By employing shamanic techniques, which are often understood to be pre or anti-scientific, these performances are highlighting the fact that scientific rationalism is not an innate universal truth, but to a certain extent, it is a constructed ideology. Philosopher John Gray discusses this issue at length in his 2003 book Straw Dogs, arguing that the modern “cult of science” is simply a reformulation of monotheistic values, and not the radical opposition to religion that it is often hailed as. He concludes, “it is a strange fancy to suppose that science can bring reason to an irrational world, when all it can ever do is give another twist to the normal madness” (2003, 28). The shamanic performances of Beuys, Linder and Coates acknowledge this inherent irrationality of the world that we live in, and suggest that engaging with so-called irrational behaviours can enrich our experience and understanding of such a world.
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Unknowable Forces
Twentieth century Polish anthropologist, Bronisław Malinowski stated that magic “is to be expected and generally to be found wherever man comes to an unbridgeable gap, a hiatus in his knowledge or in his powers of practical control, and yet has to continue in his pursuit” (cited in Thomas, 1971, 647). !22
Although Malinowski is
writing here about pre-scientific communities (and with a dose of classic European prejudice towards the “savage”), his observations can be aptly applied to the current situation in many post-industrial contemporary societies. The hiatus in our powers of practical control now relate to the unknowable forces of governments, corporations and security agencies, rather than the mysterious forces of gods, ancestral spirits and mother nature. Acknowledging Malinowski’s account of magic and its perceived functions, British historian Keith Thomas concludes, “magic is dominant when control of the environment is weak” (1971, 648). This statement is particularly appropriate in the context of current political and economic situations in Britain and America, and in light of the recent revelations regarding the apparently unrestrained encroachment upon the privacy of citizens. There might not be magical agency in performed shamanic ritual, but perhaps there is political agency. In her 1996 article, Korean Shamans and the Spirits of Capitalism, contemporary anthropologist Laurel Kendall relates her extensive fieldwork undertaken amongst modern shamans in urban Korea. From the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s, Kendall observed the shamanic rituals, or kut as they are known in Korea, enacted by contemporary shamans in the service of middle-class “clients” (see figure 10). In the majority of cases clients’ visits to shamans are motivated by socio-economic concerns - they might be seeking promotion at work, or worried about falling into debt. Kendall’s understanding is that they enlist the service of a shaman “as a means of apprehending, or asserting some control over the seemingly arbitrary motions of the political economy” (1996, 522). As the title of Kendall’s article suggests, the old spirits of traditional shamanic ritual have been replaced by the forces of rampant capitalism, which are arguably just as threatening and mysterious.
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Figure 10: Korean shaman performing a kut inside an urban house (1994). Photo credit: Laurel Kendall.
Like the Korean kut, performance art that employs shamanic ritual can offer participants a sense of agency in a culture that feels increasingly regulated and homogenised. One way in which they do this is by creating a sense of liminal space and time. According to ethnographer Arnold van Gennep, the liminal phase of ritual constitutes a transitory state (van Gennep, 1960, 11), in which participants are physically or symbolically separated from the wider community, and notions of status and identity become ambiguous. Beuys achieves this by physically insulating himself from the outside world and undergoing a symbolic transformation. In the case of Coates’ performance, Linosa Close is already imbued with a sense of liminality - it is a site in transition, the residents' position precarious and their futures uncertain. Coates writes, “the permanent artificial light gave the block a false sense of separation from the outside world” (2005, no page numbers). This sense of separation is heightened by his drawing of the curtains in Rose’s living room. A simple action that serves to further separate the space from the !24
surrounding estate and designate it as a site of ritual action. Similarly, the art gallery in which Linder’s performance takes place is arguably an inherently liminal site, a place where meaning and knowledge become ambiguous and unfixed, qualities that are accentuated by the music, costume and actions of the performance. In discussing the liminal phase of ritual, anthropologist Mary Douglas states that during this period, participants are “licensed to waylay, steal, rape… To behave antisocially is the the proper expression of their marginal position” (2002, 98). Whilst these performances do not permit such extreme behaviour, they do allow for the enactment of behaviour that is normally unsanctioned in the context of everydaylife. Within the liminal space and time of the performance, artists and participants are permitted to scream, yowl, or act like a coyote.
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Conclusion
Throughout this essay, I have attempted to demonstrate the various ways in which shamanic performance art can provide artists and participants with enriching and alternative ways of engaging with their environment. By employing shamanic techniques within the secular context of the art institution, artists are able create liminal
sites that are not governed by any specific ideology - be that religious,
scientific, or political. Within this liminal site, the normal codes of behaviour do not apply, and artists and participants are free to think and behave in ways that the “outside world” does not permit. The experience might be understood in terms of spiritual ecstasy, psychological transcendence, or a heightened sense of personal agency - I do not seek to impose my own hierarchical model upon these differing approaches to shamanic performance art, as this depends entirely on the subjective experience of each individual that engages with such works. !25
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Hugo Ball himself describes his hat as that of a witch doctor. At this time shamans were variously described as witch doctors, magicians and tricksters. 1
It may be the case that the felt blanket and breastplate also provide the artists with actual physical protection. In these case Beuys, protection against the claws and teeth of the coyote, and in the case of Linder, protection for her chest when she thrashes against the hard marble floor of the gallery. 2
I am not in any way suggesting that transvestism should be viewed as deviant, but rather hinting at the fact that Europeans reading accounts of shamanism in the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries may have held such a view. 3
Several sources give 2004 as the year that this performance took place. However in the publication Journey to the Lower World (see bibliography), which documents the project, it is stated that the performance took place in January 2003. 4
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