The Alien Effect and the Abject

Lost Words and Forgotten Notes

The Alien Effect and the Abject

Anonymous

Content Warning: Discussions of horror that may be confronting

Here I go trying to write the most undergrad student zine piece I can. There is a plethora of literature regarding how essential art is to understanding and connecting with the human experience. Buuttt, here we go again!

One concept that consistently baffles me is people who are selective about human rights. The 2014 film Pride explores this phenomenon in England during the 80s, through the lens of people supporting miner’s rights but not supporting gay rights: emblematic of the political climate during Thatcher’s conservative government. It is a political position manifested from feelings of discomfort and lack of relatability, a confrontation against one’s cultural values and norms. But still, this phenomenon of selective human rights persists and is inherently contradictory.

The old-as-time conservative moniker “LGBTQI+ groups are ruining the moral fabric of society” is still used, despite showing its age. The moral fabric of society has always been changing. The ‘moral fabric’ in question is an ideological imaginary that has been culturally cultivated, often through rigid boundaries. Thus, it is critical to be reflective in the process of attempting to understand human identity, especially in a world where the rift between the political left and right is widening.

My brother in Christ, how does this relate to aliens?

Alien forms often make people uncomfortable and despite the shockingness, have always had a cultural impact. In 1979, Ridley Scott’s Alien was released, followed by John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing. These two groundbreaking works blur the line between traditional horror, sci-fi horror and body horror. Practical effects at their most confronting display gory amalgamations of limbs and body parts, both human and non-human. These liquidations of forms, bodies and boundaries are the locus of ‘the abject’.

Abjection refers to something becoming cast off or separated from norms and rules, a dismantling of a symbolic order. The term was developed by Julia Kristeva in her 1980 book, Powers of Horror. To quote Kristeva, the abject is “what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The inbetween, the ambiguous, the composite”. Through this inherently ambivalent and ambiguous nature, the abject is a threat to one’s understanding of reality and morality. These are, by definition, ‘alien’ things, teetering on the line between ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’.

What culturally dictates the distinctions of natural and unnatural however, can be seen through the lens of left and right-leaning political ideologies. A 2012 paper titled Disgust Sensitivity, Political Conservatism, and Voting, by Inbar et. al, found that within two large samples there was a positive correlation between disgust sensitivity and political conservatism. Perceptions of morality are influenced by political beliefs and come to form a part of one’s identity. Fundamentally, we create our identities by expelling the ‘other’, excluding that which does not conform to our own sense of identity.

The importance, then, is not what is considered ‘abject’ on a personal level but the reflexivity surrounding its confrontation. Does it turn to hate? Does it intrigue you? Are you indifferent? Many artists use this to their advantage. Museums such as MONA in Hobart are centred around realitybending experiences. Most notable is the artwork Cloaca Professional by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye, colloquially known as the Poo Machine. The piece mimics a human digestive system, being fed multiple times a day, processing the food across seven glass containers and then defecating at the other end. These are not “threats to cultural norms” for the sake of provocation but, rather, they can push the boundaries of our conceptions of reality. It is a postmodern climatisation through art highlighting that human experience has, is and always will be evolving.

Contemporary ideas of what is ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ are often based on ideas of purity and harmony. The intensity of confrontation caused by abjection can be measured by the abject’s threat to preconceived notions of identity, whether human or non-human. For John Carpenter, The Thing embodies the abject, not just by taking identical forms of other organisms but by abusing the bodily identity of the creatures through grotesque morphing (just watch the dog scene). Similarly, in Alien, the scene where the xenomorph emerges from a person’s belly (much like pregnancy) is perhaps one of the more harrowing scenes in cinema history. The idea of the ‘natural body’ is toyed with. The body, something that is intrinsic to identity, has been compromised. This is why these scenes are so incredibly jarring.

Image courtesy of Arca’s Mequetrefe music video

Returning to my point however, it is the response to this attack-on-identity that is what I want to be looking at. Ideas surrounding abjection have been used to analyse cultural behaviours such as homophobia, misogyny and even genocide. Propaganda and extremism are laced with detestable hate for the ‘other’ which I argue is because of a lack of relationality and relatability. Abject experiences through art can help climatise individuals to better understand the effect of the abject in dictating cultural values and morals.

With our current political climate, I want to look at trans-expression and experiences. Arca is a Venezuelan artist identifying as she/her and it/its. Arca’s music has always pushed the cultural envelope, catching the attention of cultural kingpins such as Kanye West, FKA Twigs, Björk and Frank Ocean to name a few. Arca’s recent pentalogy of albums, from KiCk i to kiCK iiiii explore both the mutability of body and music. Sounds ranging from reggaeton, techno, hyperpop to melodic synths are arranged across 59 songs. Looking at any of her album covers or music videos you can see abjection. Limbs are added and taken away at will, all for this ‘mutant’ aesthetic. Rigid binaries of gender and genre are challenged, in a provocative inquiry into posthuman and abject possibilities.

I am not trans, my sister however, did transition around three years ago now. We are unbelievably close and she often opens up and talks of deep and disturbing body-dysmorphia, something which I now understand as a deeply personal body-abject experience. As looked at before, the abject fundamentally threatens the identity of those who perceive it, just as the body often does not ‘belong’ or ‘conform’ to a trans-identity through body dysmorphia. Artists like Arca revel in this space however, and have built culturally significant areas where they are able to freely express themselves. This kind of exposure is imperative to understanding the fluidity of human identity. Identity’s means of expression are an ever-morphing, often ‘alien’ experience. Artists like Arca and co attempt to convey personal body-abject experiences through alien and other mutant expressions: a confronting attempt at relatability that many may recoil at, but others find understanding in.

Self-expression, identity, and well-being are inextricably linked. A safe space for expression means a world where more artists like Arca can exist, a world of human rights prevailing above all. I love what Arca stands for and the connotations of her body-transforming art.

Whether confronting experiences with the abject occur through cinema, music, personal expression, or art institutions like MONA is irrelevant. These experiences are essential in the human experience of relationality. How we understand our relationality is a significant aspect of what is deemed acceptable or not in our constantly evolving world. Acceptance or lack thereof is often created clear through differences in political ideologies. It is essential to experience the abject, a sort of considered desensitisation to your own reality for the sake of understanding. Just as trans people and many other people undergo traumatising abject-identity experiences through their own bodies. To even attempt to understand others on a humanistic level, whether trans or not, often requires a confronting shaking of reality. This shaking however, is no threat to your identity or sense of self.

What was considered ‘alien’ 40 years ago would be drastically different to now. At any two points in the timeline of human history, cultural values and norms would be different. Definitions are constantly shifting. This is why rigid ideological boundaries are damaging, they deny the very fact that the human experience is and always will be evolving. If we are ever going to live in a world with equal human rights, we must absorb and allow other people’s experiences and perspectives. Artists like Arca, Ridley Scott, and even John Carpenter consistently drive home how the abject can challenge ‘normal’ human identity.