I
I
by Falke Pisano
Who or what is the ‘I’, the ‘I’ which relates to the world, speaking and acting in exchange with an environment? The artist Falke Pisano examines the societal potential of the artist at the fundamental level.The ‘I’ has multiple existences. To start with there is an ‘I’ in the form of a person, a living and lived person, speaking and spoken to (I – You), an Individual ‘Me’. As well, there is a Universal ‘I’ that possesses the faculty to speak beyond the field of direct knowledge. Finally, there is a specific Concept ‘I’ that is constructed by a particular grammar and discourse; an ‘I’ that acquires a temporal consistency based on the function it fulfils in a field that is made up out of variables. Like a concept, a Concept ‘I’ is not concretized, just like it cannot suddenly disappear. New functions can be constructed and new fields discovered. A concept exists in a state of flux and generates, by its own fluctuation, changes in that which it is connected to.The specific Concept ‘I’ described here is a singularity, an abstract machine with the proper name ‘I-machine’. This proper name does not designate an individual. The name of ‘I-machine’ is given when an individual opens up to the multiplicity passing through him or her.‘I-machine’ does not function to represent, but rather constructs a real that is yet to come, a new type of reality. Thus when it constitutes points of creation or potentiality it does not stand outside history but instead always is before it, operating a priori.‘I-machine’ exists simultaneously as an Individual ‘I’ and a Universal ‘I’. Thus necessarily speaking, ‘I-Machine’ possesses the faculty to select which words are generated and coupled with which state of things.
NOT I NOT HERE NOT NOW
A speaking figure always has agency, because by speaking it acquires the power to set in motion. In the case of ‘I-machine’, what is set in motion is the power of speech itself. The power of speech is transferred through the formal construction of another figure that can speak. ‘I-Machine’ constructs a position. A position here is a physical point at which speech is possible. In other words, the position is created in such a way that it possesses the qualities that enable it to generate, as a part of itself, a figure that can speak. The speaking figure will exist at, and as, the position that is created for it. The position, and so the speaking figure, is not fixed but always altered by the speech it facilitates. From, and as, this constructed position the figure always speaks about something other, elsewhere or of another time, creating a landscape of NOT I NOT HERE NOT NOW. When speech develops in this way, as if a landscape is created of exactly that to which one can testify, it will be made from an individual state of mind. However, it will hold the universal as well, as it will include what is not-known and not-understood, in that which is presumably understood because it is affectively perceived. This inclusion of non-understanding – in a landscape, or in speech – prevents it from obtaining a fixed meaning.
NOT BEING ABLE TO SPEAK – ‘I THINK’
‘I think’ means: there is a locus called ‘I’ where action and awareness of action are not different, where being and consciousness occupy the same place, and thus where no exchange with the outside is possible. Because agency can only be actualized when there is a separation between an act and the awareness of this act, in this condition agency is destined to stay potential. That is to say: Such an ‘I’ cannot speak.But, the ‘I’-which-thinks locus needs only to be opened up to actualize its potential agency. When a Thinking ‘I’ starts speaking, it enters into a system of relations, which presuppose its presence as well as the presence of others. As a Thinking ‘I’ opens up it becomes ‘I-machine’ and, over time, it will, like all concepts, be assigned new functions and variables. Therefore, too, it will always possess the faculty of bringing change.Falke Pisano is an artist, Amsterdam
Falke Pisano